Bielsko-Biała – a city that attracts talents and investors

The city of Bielsko-Biała is a rapidly growing economic center of Silesia’s southern subregion. In the past, the local economy was based mostly on highly developed industries. Today, the economic profile of the city is visibly changing. More and more companies from the IT sector as well as modern business services decide to locate their branches in Bielsko-Biała.

The trend of development gives young people a chance to find in Bielsko-Biała a well-paid, interesting, and challenging job, which, combined with the attractive location of the city, becomes the basis for building a competitive advantage of Bielsko-Biała over other Polish cities.

City’s investment potential

The systematic increase of the city’s investment attractiveness is one of the development policy priorities of Bielsko-Biała. Local authorities do their best to enlarge the pool of "talents" and thus attract new investors to the city.

One of such activity was the development, by Grafton Recruitment, in December 2022, of a report about the investment potential of the city of Bielsko-Biała. The publication presents the key factors determining the investment attractiveness of Bielsko-Biała, mainly in the context of human capital, but also concerns other important aspects that make Bielsko-Biała an optimal location to set up or develop business in Poland.

Human potential area

The report mainly focuses on information about the local economy, labor market, real estate market, education, and quality of life. Analyzed data mainly come from the Central Statistical Office, the results of the National Census published in 2022, as well as the preliminary results on higher education from the academic year 2021-2022.

The presented data concerns Bielsko-Biała itself as well as the surrounding poviats, which, together with the city, are defined as Human Potential Area (OPL) for Bielsko-Biała. Such approach to the presented data, especially in the context of the observed demographic trends, underlines the strong position of Bielsko-Biała as the center of the region with a large pool of qualified specialists from different industries.

A particularly important part of the report is the analysis of the availability of employees for future investors. As we read Bielsko-Biała is also a key workplace for the residents of neighboring poviats, especially Bielski, Żywiecki, Cieszyński, Pszczyński and Wadowicki. It has a positive effect on the pool of talent available for companies that invest in the city. The availability of employees with various levels of education in the OPL area for Bielsko-Biała provides opportunities to both companies that are looking for white-collars as well as manual workers.

The authors of the report point out that companies in the modern business services sector centralize a number of processes in Poland. The most popular are: finance and accounting, supply chain management, and HR. In case of the IT industry the most popular one is software development. The analysis of the availability of talents contained in the report shows that such specialists either already live in the OPL area for Bielsko-Biała, or they are willing to move here with the perspective of finding a well-paid job, professional development, and an attractive place to live with their families.

The business’ voice

The report also includes the opinions of entrepreneurs who run their businesses in Bielsko-Biała. Representatives of such international companies as Cooper Standard, Pitney Bowes, and Precisely Software expressed their point of view about the city. They all agree that the great advantage of the city is its beautiful location at the foot of the Beskid Mountains. Good communication with larger agglomerations such as Katowice and Krakow is also a favorable factor. In addition, the proximity of international airports makes it easy to travel outside the country. They also confirm that great opportunities for the development of companies result from access to a large pool of talents as well as the presence of local universities that are very willing to cooperate with business. Moreover what is also important is the fact that, compared to voivodeship cities, in Bielsko-Biała there are still relatively few companies operating in the IT industry or modern business services sector. Thanks to this, it is easier to create an attractive workplace and compete on the market for the employees.

The advantage of Bielsko-Biała over other cities also results from systematic investments related to various areas of life, including transportation investments or investments in the hospitals or kindergartens. An important advantage of Bielsko-Biała emphasized by entrepreneurs as well as by employees is a wide range of real estate and, above all, attractive prices, both for renting and buying flats or houses. In addition, Bielsko-Biała is a city with a rich cultural, educational, and sports offer, which gives unlimited opportunities to spend free time in an acti-ve way. Positive opinions from entrepreneurs about the investment potential of Bielsko-Biała are an important voice confirming the city’s position and its competitive advantages.

The report prepared by Grafton Recruitment indicates that the most important assets of Bielsko-Biała, which determine its investment attractiveness, are:

• the position of the leader of the southern subregion of the Silesian Voivodeship,
• high availability of human resources, including the city’s OPL area,
• the city's location at the crossroads of international routes,
• fruitful cooperation between the city authorities, business, and universities, high level of tertiary, secondary and vocational education,
• city policies focused on increasing the residents’ quality of life.

Thus, Bielsko-Biała is a unique place. You can find here a good atmosphere for both living and doing business. More and more investors from the IT sector and modern business services see the advantages of the city and decide to locate their branches here, taking advantage of the availability of highly qualified staff and attractive office space, also of the highest A-class standard. Modern transport infrastructure, a great number of green areas, a rich cultural and entertainment offer, as well as numerous opportunities for various types of recreation, make the city a perfect place for ambitious and active people who appreciate the idea of work-life balance.

The full report is available at: https://bielsko-biala.pl

This article comes from magazine:
FOCUS ON Business #9 March-April (2/2023)