Poland's unemployment rate rises to 11.1 percent

Official measurements from the Central Statistics Office (GUS) suggest that Poland's jobless rate rose to 11.1 percent during October, up from 10.9 percent in September. The figures, released on Wednesday, point to an anemic labor market in spite of Poland's relatively stable economy.

Out of a population of 38 million there were over 1.74 million people registered as unemployed at the end of October, according to GUS.

After the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, Poland suffered from high rates of unemployment. The trend continued into the next decade when the jobless rate reached a peak of 20.7 percent in February 2003. Accession to the EU in 2004 brought Poland robust economic growth and a healthy jobless rate, which fell to a low of 8.8 percent in October 2008 just before the global economic crisis impacted.