The Poles are leaving the UK

suggests a headline in today's Times. There are no official data, what with no immigration control for people for the European Union, but this seems to be the general impression. It is suggested that this is partly due to the falling pound (10% against the Euro since last year, though the Polish zloty is not linked to the Euro - I see it has risen against the Euro; that presumably means that it has risen even more than 10% against the pound) and also to the improving economic circumstances in Poland. Seeing as in Lithuania we are now having to employ German builders because our own are elsewhere, I can understand that. So those people who have saved up in pounds are rapidly losing the value of their savings (but it's really expensive to transfer small sums of money abroad every month).

Like the Polish workers I'm in a similar mixed economy, having expenses in the UK and in Lithuania (plus Georgia where people still love the USD). Some people pay me in GBP, most in EUR, and some in USD. Last year someone accidentally double paid me in GBP and blithely said - just treat it as an advance. Some of this I have worked off since, much of the rest I have been using to pay UK expenses. If, in the end, I will have to repay the sum (not that keen on that bit of work) I now need to pay back less since the Lithuanian currency is fixed to the Euro. It would make sense to pay off my British mortgage even faster.... On the other hand, though, my main pensions are in GBP, so when I come to retirement age and I continue to live outside the UK in Euroland, my income will be less. My experience with the GBP for the last 40 years has not suggested a great capacity for recovery in strength. Of course if the Lithuanian currency should get devalued against the Euro....

This business of being a migrant worker is really very complex.

Interestingly (you would not get this in all UK papers, and Times readers can be fuddy-duddies, too) the readers' comments on the article are on the whole positive about the Polish workforce in the UK.