The tail wagging the dog

Around 150 office real estate specialists met in the congress room of Warsaw’s Marriott hotel on October 10th to discuss the Polish office market. The title of the first discussion panel left no doubt that the market is going ‘At Full Speed’: buildings and office parks are popping up all over the country and their owners are not having any major problems with finding tenants for them. However, the sector is suffering from a rebound due to an issue affecting many sectors of the Polish economy: labour shortages. “It is notable that JP Morgan, whose Polish entry has recently been widely commented on, has scaled down its plans to recruit new members of staff from 100 to 60 people per month,” said Paweł Panczyj, the managing director of ABSL, who moderated the panel. “They have simply had to face up to the conditions on the ground in Poland,” he continued. “We have no choice: we have to look for people from abroad in some industries,” c