More than 180,000 are pensioners who are working, as stated by the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, Panos Tsakloglouin an interview on a show on One Channel.

Mr. Tsakloglou referred to the measure that enables those pensioners who wish to work with a 10% deduction from their salary for EFKA, when, in the past, the corresponding deduction was around 30% of the pension, stressing that the success of the specific measure exceeded the initial estimates of the Ministry of Labor. “Our estimate was that in about two years from now we would have almost 100,000 employed pensioners. Already, within the first months of the current year, they have declared that more than 180,000 pensioners are working,” the deputy minister underlined.

Regarding the emergency work shift, Mr. Tsakloglou clarified that this measure only applies to businesses in continuous operation, excluding catering and tourism, exclusively to cover emergency needs and in no case may it be applied on a permanent basis. He also noted that, during the extraordinary shift, the employee is paid a 40% increase on the daily wage, while, if this shift coincides with a Sunday or a holiday, the increase reaches 115%.

Regarding the evolution of wages in our country, the Deputy Minister of Labor spoke about the increase in the minimum wage, where the cumulative percentage increase from 2019 to date is significantly higher than the corresponding increase in Consumer Price Index. As he said, “at this stage, we are in the process of building a reliable wage index. However, from all the other relevant indicators, which we have at our disposal, it seems that their increase may not have been as great as that of the minimum wage, but they also record a remarkable increase during the corresponding period”.

With reference to unemployment, Mr. Tsakloglou commented that in countries where there is high unemployment, when the economy starts to take off, the first thing that decreases is the unemployment rate, while wages do not change significantly. “That is, employers can find at the prevailing wage many workers in the labor market. In a second phase, when bottlenecks appear in the labor market, wages also begin to rise. This is what we are seeing today in our country. We see that many sectors are given increased wages, in order to be able to attract workers from other sectors of economic activity” explained the Deputy Minister of Labour.

Regarding inflation, Mr. Tsakloglou admitted that it is a significant problem, but he said that the government has taken several measures, which, according to the latest available statistics, have begun to significantly slow down the rate of inflation.