In Poland you can’t get hold of a Polish plumber

Warsaw

‘Hmm, let me see,’ said Tomasz the painter,

rubbing his temples. He was trying to think of a plumber who could install a new bathroom shower. ‘Well, there’s Jacek — no, sorry, he’s gone to Dublin. There’s Lech — no, I’m afraid he’s away, I think in Bristol. There used to be that guy, what was his name, Jackowski — no, he’s in London.’

He thought for a few more minutes. ‘Sorry,’ he said at last. ‘Can’t recommend anyone.’ Thus did I discover that within a hundred-mile radius of my Polish country house — a territory that includes the city of Bydgoszcz (pop. 400,000), and the surrounding Pomeranian countryside (add another 100,000) — there was not, at that moment, a single plumber to be found.

That was last summer. Since then — since they started regular flights from Bydgoszcz to Dublin and Liverpool, since people started offhandedly referring to ‘the million’ Poles living in the British Isles — things have got worse. A piece of landscaping I lazily put off last year costs twice as much this year, because anyone who can handle a shovel is planting roses in the Home Counties. A recent attempt to buy a child’s ice hockey helmet ended in failure because there aren’t enough drivers to drive ice hockey helmets to Warsaw from wherever they are produced. My local bakery now has queues into the street because there aren’t enough salesgirls to serve customers. And pretty much every restaurant I walk past has a sign in the window: We’re Hiring!

We’re Hiring — but so, apparently, are you. You British, that is, and you Irish. And you aren’t even hiding it. ‘Come work in Ireland’ declares a man in a hard hat on a Warsaw billboard.