In Conversation… Geopolitical disruption and the future of work, what does this mean for employers?

In this special episode of our In Conversation podcast recorded live at our Managing an International Workforce 

Conference. James Davies, Partner at Lewis Silkin is joined by Ius Laboris colleagues from Canada, Italy and Poland 

to discuss the rapidly evolving global landscape, from intensifying trade wars and shifting alliances to the rise of 

populist politics and regional unrest. As the forces of geoeconomic fragmentation reshape international business, our 

expert panel unpacks

 the implications for employers managing global workforces, offering a valuable roadmap to stay 

resilient and competitive in uncertain times.

Transcript

Lucy Lewis:

Hello, I'm Lucy Lewis and welcome to a special episode of our In Conversation podcast recorded live at Lewis Silkin's Managing an International Workforce Conference, which took place back in June. In today's fast paced and evolving environment, employers must adapt strategies to ensure their organisations remain resilient, adaptable and competitive. And that's becoming increasingly important in the context of rising geopolitical and economic disruption. As some of you will remember back in February, the Future of Work Hub published the results of its employer survey conducted at the end of 2024, and the findings revealed that global dynamics and politics were seen as having the biggest impact on business in 2024. They were also ranked as a top concern when businesses looked ahead to 2025. And a lot has happened since then; the number of geopolitical hotspots impacting business and the world of work has grown and the potential for geopolitical and economic shifts to reshape the world of work feels more pressing than ever. In this session, my fellow partner, James Davies, was joined by some of our brilliant international colleagues from Canada, Italy, and Poland for a lively panel discussion looking at the impact of geopolitical and economic disruption on multinational employers and the world of work. So, without further ado, let's dive into the conversation recorded live at our conference.

James Davies:

So thank you for coming along to our breakout session on geopolitics, disruption and the future of work. Evolving geopolitics has only emphasised how topical the subject is and we're going to try to explain how we think the geopolitical disruption is relevant to businesses and relevant to the world of work. I think that there are three key ways in which this geopolitical disruption is impacting on businesses. I think we are seeing a retrenchment from globalisation and free trade. There are obvious drivers for that - Donald Trump's presidency in the States is perhaps the most significant, but we had our own driver of that retrenchment from globalisation with Brexit a few years ago.

We've got the fragmentation and rise in populism that we're seeing across many countries, particularly in Europe and we've got military conflict that I referred to before. We are going to look at each of those in this session and each of the panellists is going to say a little bit about their unique perspective on those. Obviously, Canada, Sonia is going to talk about the impact on Canadian businesses of Trump's tariffs and the impact on retrenchment from globalisation of free trade. Valeria is going to talk about the Italian experience, Italy being the one country where we do have what we would describe as populists actually in power and see what that means, particularly what that means for the world of work. And Kasia is going to talk about the experience of Poland, which is on the front line of potential impact from conflict, probably the next in line if Putin decides to go further than Ukraine – and that's all already impacting on Polish businesses and the world of work in Poland. 

For employers, it's very difficult to try to stay ahead of all this. I read recently in the Financial Times, Camilla Cavendish, I don't know if any of you saw this, talking about how some international businesses are actually appointing “Chief Political Officers” now, with the role at a board level or the responsibility to try to ensure that their business was anticipating the impact of political change around the world and the impact for their businesses. I think that when you go down and delve into the world of work - because this is why we're all here, concerned about our workforces and how all this impacts upon employment law and workforce planning and the like - the impacts again are quite significant. I'm sure that many of you are already thinking about how geopolitical disruption is impacting on your workforce planning - how many people you employ, where you employ them, what type of people, what skills you need, where to base your businesses, the impact of different political outlooks on migration, whether it's low paid employees or highly skilled people that you're looking to bring into businesses, that impact on where you might place your business, whether you're going to be able to bring people in reasonably easily. Also the prospect of military conflict and how that's impacting upon where you might base your businesses. How employment law is changing, the potential uncertainties about changes in employment law and employment taxes - does that impact upon where you might base yourself? The regulation of AI, I'm sure that for almost all of you, you're looking ahead and seeing how artificial intelligence is going to impact upon your businesses and there is a debate, as you know, going on in the UK and in most countries about the appropriate level of regulation to put in place. And again, that may be something that's influencing where you base your business. Then there's the impact of geopolitics on markets. You can be looking for different markets for your goods and services; how is it going to impact on your supply chains? Are you looking to diversify your supply chains in anticipation of potential conflict or disruption? It's also impacting on internal conflict - I know that I have and I'm sure others here dealt with particularly the internal conflict that arose from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and people with very strong views on one side or another causing management challenges for many employers.

And then Iran and Israel, I mean, what's that going to do with energy prices? Does that impact upon your plans and your strategy? So I do think that geopolitics, with demographics and technology are the three key drivers of change in the workplace but geopolitics is sometimes not given the attention it deserves. I mean, quite a good turnout here, which suggests that perhaps people and businesses are thinking ahead and concerning themselves about the impact on their workforces of this geopolitical disruption. But on that, I am going to go over to the first of our speakers, which is Sonia. I chatted to Sonia a couple of weeks ago - the tariffs in Canada and the rest the world seem to be changing every day but this is Sonia's reflection on the implications for Canadian businesses and employers of the uncertain trading conditions Canada faces itself as the nearest neighbour to Mr Trump's America.

Sonia Regenbogen:

Thank you, James, and thank you for having me. My name is Sonia Regenbogen, I'm a partner with the Canadian firm of Matthews, Dinsdale and Clark. I'm based out of Toronto. Very happy to be speaking with you on this panel recorded, unfortunately not live, but very pleased to be involved.

I am a labour and employment lawyer and certainly at this moment, given Canada's close relationship with the US, closely following the issue of tariffs and the impact to the Canadian economy and to Canadian employers.

James Davies:

Thank you, Sonia. The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House heralded a seismic shock to world trade. It seems that his answer to, in his view, protecting the US economy is to introduce tariffs on people. Canada obviously is at the forefront of that, being its northern neighbour. From our perspective over the Atlantic in the UK., we see Canada as having adopted a pretty robust response to the States. It would be great if you could give us an introduction, a very high-level overview of exactly where Canada and the US stand at the moment.

Sonia Regenbogen:

Thank you, James. As you noted, Canada is the US’ second largest trading partner following Mexico. Mexico accounts for approximately 16% of America's total trade and Canada accounts for 14%. A third country behind Canada is China, which accounts for approximately 11% of US trade. So together, Canada, China and Mexico make up for 40% of America's international trade and of course, these are the countries that we see impacted by the tariff announcements. As you've pointed out, on 1 February Trump announced 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada, with the exception of a 10% tariff on energy. The Canadian federal government quickly announced retaliatory tariffs. There is a bit of an issue as to what is covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement and therefore exempt from tariffs - notably, that was renegotiated by Trump's prior administration back in 2020. We know that the US courts have blocked some of the tariffs and then that block has been stayed. On 4 June, US President Donald Trump has announced an increase on tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50% and this went into force at midnight on Wednesday, 3 June. In that document, Trump announced that this was to counter foreign countries that were continuing to offload low price excess steel and aluminium, thereby undercutting the US market. This is a particular concern for Canada, as about a quarter of all steel used in the United States is imported and Canada is its largest supplier. So, this is a large industry in Canada and clearly directly affected.

James Davies:

So this uncertainty and these barriers must be a huge concern for Canadian businesses. As an employment lawyer, as a labour lawyer in Canada, you must have an inside track on exactly the impact it's having on jobs. Are we seeing a lot of job losses in Canada? Are you seeing your clients planning for further job losses? And aside from steel, what other industries are most affected by these issues?

Sonia Regenbogen:

So yes, we definitely have a front row seat to the impact. Approximately three quarters of Canadian exports are to the US and I think it's been described by the Bank of Canada Governor, Tiff Macklem, that Trump’s described as a very large headwind in this period of global upheaval.

While of course the Canadian federal government is engaged in negotiations to have the tariffs removed as a part of a new economic and security partnership with the US., how that will play out remains to be seen. The immediate impact is demonstrated in the unemployment rate: in April, the unemployment rate rose to 6.9% so this is clearly an alarming trend. And the longer tariffs persist, and the economic uncertainty that follow the tariffs, that's going to continue to weigh on the economy. We are seeing an immediate impact in either temporary layoffs or permanent closures of certain facilities. We are seeing businesses spending time and effort to find new export markets as the US continues to look inward for trade. So certainly, that would be sort of the largest trend: while businesses look for new economic export opportunities, we are seeing some businesses either temporarily pause or have to shut down facilities altogether.

James Davies:

It must be very worrying for workers in Canada. Are steps being taken to support the businesses and those workers?

Sonia Regenbogen:

Yes, there's two tiers. Of course, Canada has a federal system and so we've got the efforts at the level of the federal government as well as the level of each provincial government. For example, at the federal level, the Prime Minister's office has announced that the revenue collected from Canada's retaliatory tariffs will go to support Canadian workers and businesses impacted by the US tariffs, so that's a welcome commitment. In Ontario, at the provincial level, new legislation has been enacted that's aimed at increasing the support for workers in response to tariff-related terminations and layoffs. This legislation includes things like increased access to employment services and skills training, requiring employers to provide employees affected with information about provincial government programmes for skilled training and job search services, and allowing employers to extend the period of temporary layoff so that the employment relationship isn't severed and employees can continue to access benefits through that employment relationship. So that's a few examples of the most recent changes.

James Davies:

I think that's very interesting because for countries such as the UK, other countries in Europe, we can look at the Canadian experience and perhaps think ahead to the potential issues and mitigating factors that we might be seeing in our countries if the trade barriers and the tariffs continue in force, and you know, who knows what the future holds in that regard. I think that one of the interesting things that we see from this side of the Atlantic is your new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, having a very prominent role alongside Keir Starmer from the UK, Emmanuel Macron from France, almost as the leaders of the sort of free trade world looking at sort of rearguard action in promoting globalisation. Do you think this is the sort of beginnings of a retreat of globalisation or do you think that this is a pause and we'll see it renew itself? And one of the things that I look at this and perhaps see as an opportunity is that as the trading relationships renew, maybe we might see Canada entering into economic agreements with Europe. Maybe it's an opportunity for the UK to get closer to the EU once again. I mean, do you see sort of alliances reforming?

Sonia Regenbogen:

I certainly think that it is in Canada's interest to be open to continuing to develop its trading relationships and alliances across Europe. So I think that that is certainly something that is important. Of course, the United States will always be a very important and special relationship. Also the relationship with Mexico for Canada in particular and so we are very hopeful, of course, that there is a positive resolution to what is hopefully a temporary tariff issue that will be able to be resolved in the upcoming negotiations.

James Davies:

Fantastic. Thank you very much, Sonia. I do think we're all going to be continuing to look very closely at Canada as perhaps an indicator of what we might all be facing in the future in this new world of disrupted world trade. So thank you again and great that you were able to find some time to talk to us.

Sonia Regenbogen:

Thank you.

James Davies:

Of course, over the last few days, we have seen reports of the UK and Canada renewing discussions about trade agreements, so we'll have to watch this space. You’ll remember I had three key areas in which global disruption was impacting on business: one was potential retreats from globalisation, the second was the fragmentation and rise of populism in Western democracies. I'm going to say a few words about the UK and then ask Valeria some questions about the experiences in Italy. 

I think that the changing political environments in the UK and in many other European countries has resulted in a fragmentation. I mean, one thing you may or not be aware of is the UK is the only economy in Western Europe of any size that actually has one party with a parliamentary majority. In all the other Western European countries, there is either a minority government that relies on support from other parties or coalitions. I would suspect that at the next general election, we'll find ourselves following suit with a minority or coalition government. Looking at that fragmentation and the rise of populism, we are seeing this rise in populist parties and this fragmentation and a move away from the traditional centre-right, centre-left dichotomy that we have seen for many decades since the Second World War in the UK and in many other Western economies - we would have a centre-right and a centre-left and businesses tended to know where they were with those parties. Centre-right was more low regulation, small state, low tax; and centre-left was high regulation, greater rights and higher taxes. I think that since 2008 and the economic crisis that took place, politics has become much more complicated and the way I see it - I don't know whether you would agree with this or not - is that the old two axes, the economic right and left has been replaced by two axes. So you still have the right and the left on the economics axis, but you've now got this cultural or social axis that results in, on one end of the populists who tend to share nationalist or even nativist, authoritarian views, and more conservative traditional views. And then at the bottom of this, the more globalised, progressive liberal views. I think it becomes much more complicated for political parties to position themselves against this backdrop and that makes it very difficult for businesses to sort of be anticipating where employment regulation is going, to anticipate the appropriate response to changes in DEI and ESG environments. As I say, I think it's highly likely that we're going to find that after the next election a minority or coalition government in the UK of whatever complexion and that will make all of our jobs, I think, a little bit more difficult in anticipating how to manage workforces. 

Against that backdrop, I now want to go to Valeria and ask Valeria about her Italian experience. So Italy, as I said earlier, is the one Western European country with a populist party that is in power, which is ruling. You get populist parties in other countries, in Netherlands, in Finland, and places that are part of coalitions or in France supporting a minority government. But the only country where the populists are really in power is Italy and they've been there three years, so I think it's very interesting to see what that really means in practice - it could happen in Britain, it could happen in France, we could see before very long Austria and Netherlands - we could quite easily see the populist parties in power and for us as businesses or advisors to businesses, what's that going to mean for workplace? So, Valeria, I'd be very interested to hear a little bit about three years of populist government - what has happened to employment regulation?

Valeria Morosini:

Yeah, sure. Yes, it's been three years now, which is not a very short time. And I have to say, yes, the Fratelli d'Italia, the Brothers of Italy party, this is definitely populist and definitely what you would consider a right-wing party. What did they do in employment? Very, very little, not to say almost nothing. And especially if you compare with the former governments, like the Five Stars, Di Maio. In that case, for instance, their political leader was appointed as the Ministry of Employment, so this shows how employment was central for them, which is not the case for this government - employment is not their focus at all. And you can again tell based on, for instance, who's this Ministry of Labour? This Ministry of Labour is a payroll provider, someone with no political weight, no political power, it's all very, very unknown. So potentially close to employers as a payroll, but you know, very tiny vision and not ambitious and without an employment policy vision, an employment plan in this way. You have a confirmation of that also based on what we can call the Employment Bill, the Labour Bill that they issued; it's a very modest piece of legislation, it reflects actually a sort of payroll approach, meaning that it's a collection of provisions concerning very tiny operational aspects like probationary periods, resignations, etc. So not a reform in employment affecting the main areas of employment like dismissal, employee representation, etc. This is a very first sign that employment is not their core and their vision.

A second factor I would say, employment is really dangerous, especially in these uncertain times - you can make someone very happy, but become very unpopular with other groups. So because this government, and Miss Meloni in particular, they are very pragmatic, I would say, on top of what we have already said, they didn't really want the risk of touching on employment.

There is a third factor that is, in my view, very interesting to note. That is the special relationship with the unions. So I would say that from a right-wing party you would expect them to be fighting against the unions, trying to stop the unions - this would be the typical expectation for a right-wing party. Instead, they have been sort of collaborating, they have been smooth with the unions. I said they did very, very little about employment, so basically two pieces of legislation: one is the one I had mentioned already; and a second one, is facilitating the participation of employees in companies’ management. This sounds scary to you potentially but don't be scared because it's a very, again, modest piece of legislation, so participation of employees into companies’ management is just possible, it's not mandatory, so it's not a very deep change. But I was very surprised to see what I consider a right-wing party introducing a piece of legislation allowing employees participation in the companies’ management, particularly because this was really proposed by the unions. So the right-wing party was supporting something coming from the unions, allowing participation of employees in companies’ management - this doesn't match with our expectation. And actually, I think there may be an explanation - we remember when the fascist period in the 20s in Italy, there was a phenomenon called corporatism, which is the collaboration among unions which was typical of that period. This makes us think of that approach, so again, not really looking at left or right, but corporatism is a typical approach of that populist approach: collaborating with unions, potentially even giving power, some powers for the protection of employees and unions in a context of broader collaboration with the union. This is something very interesting, again, they stayed clearly away from any major reform in employment, meaning, as I said, reforming regulation about dismissal (which would potentially need a reform) or reforming employees’ representation. And they are clearly against any introduction of legal minimum wage in Italy. There has been a long discussion about introducing minimum wage, there is a directive, etc. Currently, minimum wage in Italy is set by the collective agreement. Again, why they don't want minimum wage? Because this would probably limit the union's powers, limit the union's influence because today minimum wage is set by collective agreements. So if the unions don't even have that role in Italy, I think their role would be significantly diminished overall.

James Davies:

Thank you, Valeria. That does seem to reinforce the point that it's sort of misleading to describe populists as necessarily right-wing. As far as their approach to employment regulation is concerned, they need to be very careful not to alienate their core vote, which is often amongst the people that benefit most from trade union representation or workers' rights. I think if you do look at other so-called right-wing populist parties’ manifestos in the Netherlands and France and other countries, or even Reform in the UK, they run scared of saying anything about employment regulation. The only exception to that is Austria, where we do get an economically right-wing, but socially, culturally conservative authoritarian government. So Valeria, what has been the approach from Meloni’s government to DEI and ESG? Have we seen major changes there?

Valeria Morosini:

Not many changes for sure. Generally speaking, I have to say it was clearly a strategy, it was not by chance because in three years they didn't do much in employment and in general and this is probably because of the uncertain times or maybe for a broader strategy but they didn't introduce big changes – and certainly not in DE&I. Also if you consider that in DE&I, you know, their speech is about traditional family, about national identity and limiting rights for same-sex couples, etc. So they didn't do much and they wouldn't do much probably if they can.

James Davies:

So, and finally, one of the things that we again associate with the Meloni, Giorgia Meloni’s party and with the populists is a very robust approach to migration. And we do see on our televisions media reports about the steps that Italy is taking with people across the Mediterranean on boats and the like. From our perspective, I think people are to be most interested in the approach of the government to business migration, work migration - are you seeing any changes in the ability for businesses, international businesses, to bring in workers from other countries to fill vacancies?

Valeria Morosini:

So, in a way they did it, but not this government actually, it was done by previous governments and actually this government has been limiting a little bit what I'm going to say. Migration, as you say, it's more focused on limiting illegal migration through the Mediterranean with the boats, etc. so no more than that - no major reforms, for instance, in immigration regulation. But from a tax perspective, there are some pieces of legislation that are, as a matter of fact, facilitating people coming; high earners for instance. But again, this is not Meloni's regulation. We now have a set of rules for those who would move to Italy - meeting a certain number of conditions, of course - they would be taxed on only 50% of their income given a certain cap on Italian revenues. At the same time, there is a separate provision allowing (you can remember in the news the CEO of Goldman Sachs moving to Italy, he's benefiting of this) people to move their residence into Italy to benefit from just a flat fee. So you pay a tax, a fixed tax, it was 100,000 euros and they doubled Meloni's to 200,000 euros which this is on foreign revenues. So for those, for instance, having huge revenues from equity and many other sources outside Italy, moving into Italy and being taxed only 200,000 euros can be very interesting. And that's why many are moving to Milan; Milan is very glamorous, of course so there are good reasons for that. Given that the regime in the UK is weakened and we have this tax regime and two very interesting little details: one is that for this kind of tax regime, you can ask the tax authorities to have a certification that you meet the conditions before starting to use it. This is very smart because with this type of high earners, you cannot leave uncertainty and so you can have the certainty before applying to a certain tax regime that you meet the conditions so you're not at risk. Second - very smart little detail they introduced which is actually Meloni's government - is that asset managers, those who work in investment banks, etc, if working from Italy on an habitual basis, do not constitute a PE, a permanent establishment. This gives certainty to the employer, so if the people are coming to Milan and working from Milan, this is of course an obvious risk of permanent establishment, but for asset managers, we have this provision. This is very interesting. So, you know, welcome to Milan if you want.

James Davies:

We've seen from our clients, many people moving over to Italy, to Milan in practice and I'm sure the sunshine, the mountains, the wine, the coffee, food has nothing to do with it. Thank you, Valeria. 

We'll move over now to Kasia in Poland and look at the impact on a country perhaps more affected by the prospect of military conflict than many and how that's impacting on businesses in the world of work. So obviously, Poland is at the frontline of concerns about the territorial ambitions of Mr. Putin - it spends more of its GDP on defence than any other European country other than Russia or Ukraine, it's absorbed a million refugees from Ukraine and we've seen in the British media recently, reports about military training in Poland. This immediately brings up questions about how that's impacting upon businesses. So, Kasia, looking at the training first, how does that work in practice? I read one report in the UK that said it was Polish men, is it really only men? How much notice must be given? How long is the military training for? I mean, what happens if one of your lawyers is about to have a big case on Monday - are you at risk of losing them military training? How does it work in practice?

Kasia Dobkowska:

Okay, so I think the most important thing is that there is no compulsory military training in Poland. What is compulsory is coming to the qualification process where mostly men (I'll tell about women in a minute) are examined and qualified whether they're fit to military service or not. So this is compulsory, but there is no compulsory military service. There is voluntary and there are two main types. The first type is so-called territorial military service, which is rotational - it lasts two years, but someone who is in this service does it for two days a month so it doesn't affect employment very much. The other type of training, let's call it standard military training, it may last from one month to 12 months and it is permanent, so not a few days a month. You asked, James, about women - only women in specific professions or getting specific education can be asked to come to this qualification process and can voluntarily join military service. These are mostly medical professions, psychologists, IT, translators. 

As far as notification is concerned, it may be problematic because the law doesn't say anything about any deadlines. So from the employer's perspective, you can be informed about your employee being called or volunteering to the military service at a very short advance or even after this military training has happened. Of course, there are two sources of information to the employers. The first one, the military authority needs to give formal information, but also employees need to inform their employers immediately about it so it's rather obvious that employers will first learn about the military training from their employees because they know before the authority prepares a formal letter and this letter is delivered to the employer. Of course, it may cause trouble, especially in the case of key employees doing key projects for the employer, because it may turn out that the employee is called to military service. But I would say that it's a similar situation to, I don't know, accidents or becoming ill, becoming incapacitated to work because in Poland obtaining doctor's certificate is very easy. So I don't think we do notice that it is affecting employers to a big extent. There are very rare situations where employers face such problems but for now, it's not a problem. What the future will bring, we will see, although the government says that there are no intentions to introduce compulsory military service in Poland. They instead will work on some methods of encouraging people to undergo this voluntary military service.

James Davies:

And when we were discussing this before, you mentioned that somebody who elects to take military service can't be dismissed. Do you have any sort of examples as to how that might be impacting on businesses?

Kasia Dobkowska:

Yes, as a matter of fact, until now I had one question from the employer regarding military service. The employee at hand was dismissed due to liquidation of his position and including the entire department he was the head of, and during the notice period, he volunteered to undergo this military training and he gained protection because the law says that you cannot terminate the employment of an employee who is in military service without their consent. So even if the notice has been already delivered, the employment cannot be terminated and the law explicitly says that in such a situation this notice loses its validity, it becomes ineffective. By virtue of the law, the employee is treated as restated like the notice didn't happen.

James Davies:

And for how long do they have that protection?

Kasia Dobkowska:

It depends on the type of military service. In the case of this two-year territorial rotational military service, it is for the duration of it, so for those two years. In the case of the, let's call it standard military service of one month up to 12 months, it's for the duration of military training and 12 months after it is finished.

James Davies:

And who has to pay people when they're doing military service or they're kept on?

Kasia Dobkowska:

So the law requires the employers to grant unpaid leave to the employees so the employer does not pay anything. It is the state, the government, the military authorities who pay. There are even some sorts of reimbursement for the employers if they bear some costs connected with those trainings. So financially, the employers should not be affected by this.

James Davies:

And as I said in introducing you, one of the other consequences of military conflict is that people flee the conflict and we know that Poland has welcomed over a million Ukrainians into the country. How has that impacted upon the workforce? Have we seen pressures to Ukrainians competing with Poles? Have they been gratefully accepted by the Polish community and have employers benefited from having the migrants there?

Kasia Dobkowska:

Yes, I think that most of us in Poland are happy that we could help the Ukrainian people, but also that we have them as a workforce. The unemployment rate in Poland is one of the lowest, I think, in Europe, it's around 5% so we need those employees, and they fill in the positions that may not be that attractive for Polish people - these are in logistics, transport, hospitality businesses. I haven’t heard any complaints from any political parties in Poland about Ukrainians as employees. Where there is some resistance is in the Ukrainians’ access to social benefits. For instance, we have in Poland a benefit called 800 plus, which is paid per each child monthly to the parents and it is also paid to Ukrainians. There are politicians - and it was raised during the last presidential elections - that it's not fair that the Ukrainians should have full access to those social benefits, to the free healthcare, but even the Polish government is considering limiting paying this 800 plus only to those Ukrainians who work in Poland and pay taxes.

James Davies:

Thank you, Kasia. So we’ve come to the end of our session, can I ask you to thank our panellists. 

Lucy Lewis:

So that brings us to the end of today's episode, a really fascinating conversation on how geopolitical and economic changes are reshaping the world of work, with perspectives from countries at the really sharp end of those shifts. We hope it's given you some valuable insights to reflect on. 

You can find the details of the speakers and the resources from the session on our Future of Work Hub website. We'll be back in September with the next episode of our Peer-to-Peer podcast, where Lewis Silkin's Chief People Officer, Julia Paulding, will be chatting to Andy Campbell-Critchley, Chief Human Resources Officer at Randstad, UK & Ireland. They'll be exploring how Randstad is responding to the key trends shaping the future of work. Thanks so much for listening and look forward to your company next time.