The H2 2011 trend of falling monthly employment levels and moderate wage growth was evident in the final month of last year, indicating that employers are continuing to respond preemptively to an expected economic slowdown.

Private-sector employment fell by 0.2 percent on the month, pulling the annual rate of growth down to 2.3 percent from 2.4 percent the month before.

“We may assume that enterprises – taking into account the coming economic slowdown in Poland and abroad – started to cut employment,” Bank Zachodni WBK analysts wrote in a market report.

Analysts expect that, for the foreseeable future, December will be the final month in which employment grows above an annualized 2 percent.

Wages in the private sector meanwhile grew by a below-forecast 4.4 percent year-on-year in December, compared to consumer price inflation of 4.6 percent in the same month. In m/m terms, wages grew by 9 percent, mainly due to the payment of bonuses, to stand at zł.4,015.37.

“These data are still supportive for consumer demand,” BZ WBK wrote.

Despite this, prospects for the labor market in 2012 are not optimistic, given the expected continued cooling of demand from Poland's main European trading partners.

“We expect stagnation of employment and clear deceleration of wages to the level of annual CPI. From the Monetary Policy Council's point of view [the] data is neutral – we still expect rates to remain unchanged in coming months,” BZ WBK wrote.