As many as 260,000 Ukrainians have found employment under a simplified procedure introduced to help them find work, the Polish family and social policy minister said on Tuesday.

Under a special law, Ukrainian citizens who arrived in Poland after February 24, when Russia attacked, can take up employment without the need to apply for a special work permit.

“Nearly 50 percent of working-age Ukrainian refugees, who have been granted a PESEL number which gives them access to the Polish labour market and public services, have already found a job in Poland,” Minister Marlena Malag told a Polish public radio programme on Tuesday.

Among other measures, the new law offers Polish language training to the refugees and streamlines labour inspections.

The Polish Border Guard’s recent data show that around 4.39 million refugees, mainly women and children, have crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border into Poland since Russia’s war on Ukraine started.