The figure was 82,000, or 5.9 percent, higher than in March last year, Statistics Poland (GUS) reported. However, it was 1.4 percent lower than at the end of December, a decrease of 20,900 people over the three-month period.
Among those working exclusively under contracts of mandate (umowa zlecenia) and similar contracts, men accounted for 51.5 percent, while women made up 48.5 percent, GUS said this week.
Such contracts are commonly referred to in Poland as "junk contracts."
Administrative and support service activities had the largest number of people working exclusively under "junk contracts," at 312,600, or 21.2 percent of the total.
Jobs in human health and social work ranked second, with 154,600 people, or 10.5 percent.
Another 20,300 people worked exclusively under specific-task contracts (umowa o dzieło) in March. Men also made up the majority in this group, accounting for 52 percent.
The figures refer to people whose work was based exclusively on civil-law contracts and do not include those who had such contracts alongside other forms of employment.
In July, Poland’s labour inspectors gained new powers to convert improper civil-law contracts into regular employment contracts.
Family, Labour and Social Policy Minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk told reporters at the time that the new rules were aimed at fighting "junk contracts, a dysfunctional process that has been eating away at the Polish job market for decades."
The term "junk contracts" refers to work arrangements that replace regular employment contracts with civil-law or business-to-business agreements, often leaving workers with fewer rights and weaker social protections.
(sp/gs)
Source: IAR/PAP