Data this week showed Poland’s jobless rate dropped to 7.5 percent in May under EU methodology, and all signs are the country’s days as Europe’s unemployment blackspot may be gone for good.

Analysts say the numbers out of work will fall further in months ahead, putting pressure on employers to spend more on keeping valuable workers and upping the amount of cash consumers spend and borrow.

This spells trouble for companies, and in particular the exporters who are struggling to compete after the zloty’s almost 20 percent against the euro over the past 12 months increased the cost of their products for western European buyers.

But for working Poles for now the news is only good.

Under the methodology used by the Central Statistical Office (GUS), unemployment remains around 10 percent, but it is expected to drop into single figures over the summer, when thousands traditionally head for temporary jobs in agriculture and tourism, both at home and abroad.

It may inch up again later this year, but with the economy in good overall shape, analysts say falls are likely to continue.

As a result, wages continue to grow at a rate of more than 10 percent year-on-year –compounded for working expats by the zloty’s gains against the major western currencies. Since last April, the zloty has gained 18 percent against the euro and more than 30 percent against the dollar.

Compare this to 2004, when more than 20 percent of the workforce was on the dole as Poland joined the EU, wages were stagnating and the zloty was just recovering from a slide to almost 5 zlotys per euro.

At the heart of the change since then is a boom in EU and foreign investment, and an exodus of young Poles to jobs in the UK and other wealthy western states has driven unemployment down and brightened the outlook for those left behind.

The question now is only when all of this will turn around. Newspapers have made much of the repatriation of Poles from the UK in recent months – but there is no sign of them in the employment figures, at least not while the economy continues to grow more than twice as fast as the euro zone. Even with western economies set to struggle next year, economists believe the picture in 2009 will be similar.