“Unemployment in Greece, in the last 3.5 years, has been significantly reduced from 17.5 to 11.5%. But, this is not enough. To continue to reduce unemployment, to have new jobs, to address labor market imbalances, to move forward with reforms and to fill the gap in human resources skills, Greece must continue to have a stable and serious government. This is to the benefit of both the employed and the unemployed.”

This was noted, among others, by the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Kostis Hatzidakis, speaking today at the conference on human resources skills, organized by the “Economist”.

Mr. Hatzidakis identified four factors, which, despite the reduction of unemployment, are responsible for the gap between the skills available to the human resources and those sought by the labor market and presented the initiatives undertaken by the government to address the problem, mainly with Law 4921/2022 “Jobs again”.

As he said, these factors are:

1. Preferences: The fact that workers do not prefer working in the primary sector (agriculture and animal husbandry), a phenomenon which, as the minister underlined, is not only Greek, but also European. In order to meet the needs – he noted – there are agreements for the arrival of workers from third countries who are employed in these works.

2. Allowances: It was found that tens of thousands remained registered with the Public Employment Service (PES) in order to benefit from the benefits associated with it, without needing them. For this reason, as he pointed out, the “Works Again” law changed the status of benefits, which were linked to income, while the three-offers/three-refusal system was established: if the registrant refuses three offers of suitable jobs , then it is deleted from the registry. “It is one thing for someone to need the registry and to use it, and another to take advantage of it,” said Mr. Hatzidakis.

3. Wages: As the prime minister has often repeated, employers will have to pay higher wages in order to find the workers they need. This was especially evident last year in tourism, where, despite the lack of permits for foreign workers, the gaps were filled by Greeks who received relatively higher salaries. In the coming days, the minister reminded, an increase in the minimum wage will be approved, which will be significant.

4. Training: Finally, Mr. Hatzidakis commented that our country did not make the best use of EU funds for training programs for decades. This is one of the reasons why our country is at the bottom of the EU in the skills mismatch indicators.

The minister also added that, with the provisions of Law 4921/2022, safeguards were established in order for the funds of the Recovery Fund and the NSRF to be used in the best way, linking the fees of the training providers, but also of the trainees with the results of the training. “At the same time, we introduced, for the first time, Greek universities to the training programs. We would expect greater participation from HEIs and we encourage them to move in this direction. In addition, partnerships have been implemented with international giants such as Google, Amazon, Cisco and Microsoft. These are things that would have been considered unthinkable in previous years,” he added.

In total, more than 700,000 employed and unemployed people will take part in the next years in the training and retraining programmes, financed by the Recovery Fund and the NSRF, with a focus on green and digital skills.

Finally, answering a question, Mr. Hatzidakis noted that the trend of teleworking, which was strengthened due to the pandemic, allowed Greeks who had gone abroad to return and work for foreign companies from our country, as well as Greeks workers who remained in the country, to be employed by employers outside Greece who offer better wages. “We can’t stop the land, to go down”, said the Minister of Labor and pointed out: “If Greek companies want to attract these workers, they will have to pay them more”.

For his part, the commander of the DYPA, Spyros Protopsaltis, emphasized the largest training program for 120,000 unemployed and 150,000 workers in digital and green skills, which our country is implementing. As he said, the goal is that by 2025, 500,000 citizens will have upgraded their skills.

Among other things, Mr. Protopsaltis emphasized the importance of partnerships between the public sector, the private sector and secondary and higher education, to address the challenges created by skills shortages as a result of the digital and green transition.

At the same time, the DYPA commander stated that, now, the top priorities are the quality and the result of the training.

Concluding his presentation, Mr. Protopsaltis said that DYPA has progressed in upgrading professional education and training.

Joost Korte, director-general, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (EMPL ).

Monica Verzola, vice-president, Lifelong Learning Platform (LLLP), stated that the aim is to support innovation and the competitiveness of the economy and, in this context, she underlined the decisive role that lifelong learning can play.

Finally, El-lza Mohamedou, head, OECD Center for Skills, found that skills development is a global and universal issue. In this direction, as he noted, targeted policies and lifelong learning can contribute, while it is considered appropriate to strengthen existing education systems, to have synergies between the public and private sectors and to develop public policies to support vulnerable citizens .