Jarosław Kaczyński said Poland must "restore its industry" Courtesy of PiS

Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party, has promised to create 1.2 million “stable” jobs between 2014 to 2023, if it comes to power. The announcement was made during a debate on unemployment in Poland, held last week.

The next parliamentary election is scheduled for 2014, although there has been some speculation in the media that earlier elections may be called due to the fast-changing political events on the ground fueled by the global economic crisis.

PiS is proposing changes to the tax system, to public spending and to the credit system. It wants entrepreneurs to receive loans from “public resources.” It has likewise proposed special subsidies for small towns and villages which it says are “economically degraded.” It also wants to eliminate “unjustified” tax privileges and an end to what it calls “tax discrimination.”

“It is not impossible to have a situation whereby unemployment is low and people who have emigrated abroad, often to work below their qualifications, can come back,” said PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, while presenting the plan.

Mr Kaczyński said Poland must “restore its industry.”

“We need action from the state, the kind of action that will not replace private enterprise but will support it and encourage it,” the PiS leader said, calling unemployment a “plague.”

The jobless rate in Poland was at 12.4 percent in September, according to Central Statistical Office figures. And with worsening macroeconomic news having become the norm in recent months, the situation is not expected to improve anytime soon. Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s minister of labor and social policy, said recently that he hopes unemployment will not “exceed 13 percent by the end of the year.”

According to participants at the debate, there is currently a five-million-strong untapped workforce in Poland.