ABSTRACT
The objective of this chapter is to explore some questions from the previous chapter, in order to provide a more detailed discussion of some factors that could influence the dynamics and the characteristics of unemployment in transition countries. We will use data from Poland to focus on the specific factors affecting the post-socialist labour markets: (i) the elimination of labour hoarding, (ii) the aggregate macro shocks caused by stabilisation and CMEA breakdown, and (iii) the medium/long term process of reallocation of labour across economic sectors resulting from liberalisation and privatisation. We will argue that the first two dimensions are strongly correlated with the third, with the most space devoted to this last topic.
