Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/global-economic-downturn-slams-ireland-spares-poland Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The economic slump is affecting European Union member countries very differently. In Ireland, companies are laying off workers, while the Polish economy is growing. Special correspondent Jeffrey Kaye reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. KRZYSZTOF MATUSZEWSKI: I still prefer Polish food. JEFFREY KAYE: You prefer Polish food?Matuszewski earns up to $750 a week. KRZYSZTOF MATUSZEWSKI: It's the same as I earn here per week, in Poland, I need to work a whole month for it. JEFFREY KAYE: You're making in a week what it would have taken you a month to make in Poland? KRZYSZTOF MATUSZEWSKI: Yes. Yes. JEFFREY KAYE: It's the same story for Matuszewski's friend, Dominika Rydwelska, a shop assistant. She has almost daily Internet video calls with her mother in Poland, to whom she regularly sends money. Her mother told me that she wouldn't mind emigrating herself, but doesn't speak enough English.However, with the Irish economy in recession, the immigration picture is changing. Developer and broadcaster Neil Prendeville has had a bird's-eye view of fading Irish luck. NEIL PRENDEVILLE, broadcaster/developer: We had our time in the sun, and we spent like drunken sailors. JEFFREY KAYE: Prendeville says the construction boom couldn't be sustained. NEIL PRENDEVILLE: You know, in Ireland, what was happening was everybody wanted to buy a house. Money was cheap; interest rates were low; banks were shoveling money out to people.