STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION ON THE LABOUR MARKET IN POLAND ON THE BACKGROUND OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 20 YEARS AFTER ACCESSION

The article aims to evaluate the varying labour market development within European Union (EU) Member States – including Poland – after the Eastern Enlargement of the EU in 2004-2005, and 20 years following said enlargement (2021-2022). The presented study consists of two phases. In the first phase, an analysis of the labour market situation in the EU Member States, including Poland, was carried out for the years 2004-2005 and 2021-2022. Using the non-linear ordering method – Ward's method – clusters of countries with similar labour market situations were identified. In the second stage, the TMAI measure was used to rank countries using the linear ordering method and to compare labour market differentiation between countries over the period considered. The situation on the labour market in Poland in the analysed period improved, as verified by the taxonomic analysis, which included an agglomeration method – cluster analysis utilizing Ward's minimum variance method with Euclidean distance, as well as the hierarchical method – the benchmark method (TMAI measure). The results obtained provide a comprehensive outlook on both the Polish and other European labour markets situation. After 20 years of EU membership, Poland's position relative to other EU27 countries in terms of labour market status has notably strengthened. Spain was most analogous to Poland in terms of labour market status during the year of accession, whereas the Czech Republic shares the closest resemblance two decades later.