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Comment by dwedge | Hacker News Reader

> The rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work

I don't know. I want to agree with you, but a large part of the economic growth in Poland is off-shoring and cheap tax (~12% on contract) for tech workers. The average tech wage there now is pretty similar to the UK, and I don't really see many startups there - probably in part because of how bureaucratic their business system can be. I don't know if this influx of foreign money from off-shoring and surge in real estate pricing is sustainable or good in the long run.

Other than a massive influx of overdevelopment of flats in the cities (sometimes too rushed, I've seen reports of flat blocks subsiding because of cutting corners), I'm not sure where else the increase it.

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Do you have any sources for the claim that a large part of growth is off-shoring?

Because that seems extremely implausible, and actually very insulting to the incredible success of Eastern Europe, before and after joining the EU, in closing the gap to Western Europe over the last 3 decades.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

The reason for the growth over different time frames can differ. Anecdotal, but most of the IT people I know from Poland worked for, as they call it, "big corpo" and generally it's offshoring either directly with companies such as DXC/Luxoft or n-ix, or through local offices (Akamai for example). If you look at the average salary in Poland (in general), and the average tech salary + the number of tech workers there, it's easy to say a large part of the GDP is tech.

Whether or not it's offshoring is a little less obvious, but I can't think of more than 2 or 3 successful Polish tech companies.

What is the average salary, the average tech worker salary, and the number of tech and other workers in Poland?

There are other countries in the world or even in the EU where salaries are lower than in Poland. Why don't they see the similar growth? I guess this is more nuanced than just lowered salaries can explain it. Surely, that's part of the equation but to develop highly innovative economy, one needs to start with something. That's how China started, how Korea started etc.

It's easy to say but it's also wrong. I had Claude look for actual sources.

https://emerging-europe.com/it-sector-in-focus-poland/

The IT sector is 4.4% of GDP. Poland has seen 3% of GDP growth year on year.

I’m so confused. At least in tech all the big companies I work with are hiring in Poland because it is about the same as India after losses around fake hiring and the quality averages better.

It is absolutely a huge offshoring target at least for the US.

Everywhere is an offshoring target for US tech. Tons of US tech companies have Canadian offices because Canadian rates are far below US rates.

What exactly is confusing to you?

Anecdotes from your bubble inside one particular industry, that represents a small fraction of the economy of a nation, do not adequately explain the post soviet transformation of economies containing hundreds of millions of people. That's all.

Specifically I asked for evidence that current GDP growth is significantly driven by this specific type of foreign investment, as claimed. None has been forthcoming.

Large part is due to offshoring, but not the IT. Offshoring the manufacturing.

Also some companies are moving their offices from Poland to India now.

You dont have money, you complain. You (as in your country) get the money, yet you still complain.

Sure, its not ideally distributed, but nowhete is. Such economic success will drag many parts of the country up. Yes, jobs not paid the best will have to commute from further. But compared to where Poland was 2 decades ago (been there many times), its great growth and success.

Plus you guys have correct mentality to by far the biggest threat to Europe - russia. Not so common in eastern Europe, russian-paid politicians are quite successful in some places. But of course Poland has a history with russia to remember so thats luckily not an option.

Russia with conventional weapons is no longer threat to anyone.

China was the offshore haven and built their own domestic economy off the expertise while still maintaining very low income taxes and 15% corporate tax for tech companies.

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