The 'natural history' of unemployment in Poland during past two decades

The paper shows history of Polish unemployment since 1990 e.g. the start of systemic transformation. It presents the size of the problem, then the awareness dimension. Based on data from the past 21 years, it can be concluded that changes in the economic situation clearly influenced the Poles' opinions on the labor market. For most years, employment access opportunities were rated by the respondents as very low and low. Several periods of decline in unemployment were associated with improvement, increasing optimism among respondents and a belief in the future. The aim of the paper is to perform an analysis of the objective and subjective dimension of the social problem that is unemployment under the conditions of a developing democracy and market economy and the dismantling of the welfare state in Poland.