The Central Statistical Office of the Republic of Poland (GUS) has published data on the registered unemployment rate in Poland covering the period from 1990 to 2026. The publication includes detailed percentage values for each month in selected years, illustrating long-term trends in the labor market. Analysis of this data reveals a clear downward trend in recent years, following earlier periods of significant unemployment growth in the first decade of the systemic transformation.
Historical context and peak values
In the early period following the economic transformation, the registered unemployment rate rose gradually. In December 1990, it stood at 6.5%, but in the following years, this indicator increased, reaching 13.2% by the end of 1996. The peak in this data sequence occurs around the turn of 2003 and 2004. In December 2004, the registered unemployment rate was 19.0%, which represented one of the highest levels in the period covered by the table.
In the subsequent years, the indicator gradually declined. By December 2007, the rate had dropped to 11.2%, and in 2010, it stood at 12.4%. In the early part of the 2010-2020 decade, a further, albeit uneven, decrease in unemployment can be observed. In December 2015, the indicator reached 9.7%, marking a shift out of the double-digit range.
The modern era and calculation variants
Data for 2020 and 2021 contain a specific arrangement of values resulting from two different methods for estimating the number of people employed in individual agriculture. The variant denoted by the letter "a" is based on the results of the 2010 Agricultural Census, while variant "b" is based on data from the 2020 Agricultural Census. For example, for December 2020, variant "a" shows a value of 6.3%, while variant "b" presents 6.8%. A similar ambiguity applies to individual months in 2021, where values vary depending on the source of agricultural data used.
Values for 2022–2024 stabilize at single-digit levels. In December 2022, the unemployment rate was 5.2%, in December 2023 it was 5.1%, and in December 2024 it was 5.1%. In 2025, this indicator remained in the range of 5.1% (May) to 5.7% (December), with the last month of 2025 closing at 5.7%.
Current market status in 2026
Current data for 2026 indicate the continued maintenance of a low level of registered unemployment. In January 2026, the rate stood at 6.0%, which is a value slightly higher than at the end of the previous year. In the following months, there was a slight decline: in February and March it was 6.1%, in April 6.0%, and in May 5.9%. From June to September 2026, the registered unemployment rate remains at a stable level of 5.8%. It should be noted that some data in the table are marked with an asterisk, signaling that they have been revised relative to previously published values.
Methodologically, calculating the unemployment rate requires taking into account data on employed persons in the entire national economy, including in individual agriculture, which constitutes part of the economically active civilian population. The change in estimation sources for agriculture every few years results from the cyclicity of conducted general and agricultural censuses, which affects the statistical consistency of individual periods.