EN
The aim of this study was an attempt to determine the qualifications and skills of staff in Polish furniture industry and indicate its main needs in this area and the desired directions of education and improvement of employees’ competences at various levels of education. The complex nature of the analyzed issues means that different testing methods of economic and social phenomena were used in the research process, mainly the inductive-deductive method, logical reasoning, creative thinking and qualitative methods. These were in particular: desk research, expert method, brainstorming, survey (conducted in selected furniture industry enterprises) and analogy (similarities to industries with characteristics comparable to the furniture industry). The analysis shows that in the future, it should be expected that the role of knowledge in creation of advancement in all fields of activity will grow in importance and the significance of human resources will rise among all development factors, especially in terms of personnel quality. If the competitiveness of the furniture industry on the global market and its innovativeness is to increase, it is necessary to provide highly-skilled labor, ready for working in new economic conditions. One should remember though, that the future is not so much about “industrial workers” as “knowledgeable employees”.