ABSTRACT Poland has emerged as one of the primary destinations for Ukrainian refugees, with ~953,000 forced migrants from Ukraine residing in the country as of May 2024. This paper examines the differences in labour market integration between Ukrainian voluntary migrants and forced migrants in Poland, comparing their situations from 2022 to 2024. The analysis is based on three quantitative surveys conducted in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The article compares the situation of both groups of migrants in several aspects: labour market situation, job satisfaction, knowledge of spoken Polish and migrants' residence plans. Our research revealed that the differences between the two groups evolved throughout the study period. Among the surveyed group of Ukrainian refugees, the proportion of those entering employment has increased significantly, reaching 64% in 2024. In the same year, the employment rate among pre‐war migrants was higher, at 75.7%. The survey shows that the knowledge of the Polish language among refugees has improved over the analysed period. In the first edition of the survey, more than 20% of respondents did not speak Polish, whereas in 2024, this number had decreased to 3.2%. Our research contributes to human capital theory by emphasising that the realisation of migrants' potential—how effectively they utilise and develop their skills, education and experiences in their new country—depends not only on their qualifications but also nature of migration and shows the contrast between voluntary and forced migrants from the same country.
Kubiciel‐Lodzińska et al. (Thu,) studied this question.