“At the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, we designed and implemented an effective strategy in these six months, in order to “shield” the labor market and provide solutions to chronic insurance problems” says the outgoing Minister of Labor and current Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, in an account of the work of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security during his tenure.

In particular, Mr. Georgiadis points out the following:

“In this short period of time, we have succeeded, through two studied bills, in creating the foundations for a better working tomorrow and a fairer insurance system.

With our first labor bill (N. 5053/2023), we created a safety net for private sector workers while at the same time addressing chronic distortions in the labor market while minimizing bureaucratic and administrative burdens.

Analytically:

  • We put an end to the abusive employer practice of multi-month and multi-year probationary contracts.
  • We legalized multi-employer work for what it means to increase workers’ incomes.
  • We tackled the problem of unpredictable work through bespoke contracts.
  • We introduced stifling rules and fines to crack down on undeclared and uninsured work.
  • We have given incentives to businesses that implement the Digital Job Card, reducing the excessive administrative burden for them.
  • We launched the “REBRAIN GREECE” platform, a mechanism to support and connect workers, who live inside and outside Greece, with jobs in high-skilled occupations.
  • We have taken critical decisions to protect employees during periods of extreme weather, such as for delivery services, while with a specific legislative provision, we have taken measures for the health and safety of employees.

Our interventions and reforms were crucial and had direct effects on the labor market as well.

During my tenure Labor Inspectorate inspections increased and we exceeded our target for annual inspections by 2023. The target was for 67,000 inspections and we eventually exceeded 72,000. Thousands of fines were secured and paid to delinquent businesses, while one of the highlights of my tenure was the drop in unemployment below 10%, a historic record since 2009.

Our biggest initiative was the “unfreezing” of the three-year and all seniority allowance, which had been suspended since February 2012. This arrangement is estimated to directly benefit 100,000 workers, who will see their wages increase by 2024.

But we also achieved a lot in the insurance sector, most importantly the reduction of outstanding pensions from 35,000 to 24,000 (-30%)while at the same time, we reduced the number of outstanding supplementary pensions from 65,000 in July 2023 to today’s 30,000 (-55%).

With the new insurance bill (L. 5078/2023), which we passed a few weeks ago, we solved many issues related to pension and insurance issues.

Specifically:

  • We have enabled pensioners who want to work to do so without 30% of their pension being cut. Already, 50,000 working pensioners have seen a 30% increase in their pension at the end of 2023.
  • We have simplified the procedures for setting up Professional Insurance Funds, through the establishment of good governance rules, to achieve better returns and increase the confidence of the insured.
  • For the first time, disability pension recipients can work without conditions and without any cuts to their pension. According to the president of ESAMeA, Mr. Vardakastanis, it is the biggest reform in favor of people with disabilities in the last 30 years.
  • We extended the 9-month maternity protection provision to self-employed, self-employed and female farmers, strengthening the demographic policy.
  • We made it possible for those with debts to the insurance funds to get a pension, by increasing the limit for self-employed workers from 20,000 to 30,000 and for farmers from 6,000 to 10,000.
  • We have tackled the problem of chronic waiting for supplementary pensions to be granted to insured persons. With this arrangement, 11,000 pension requests, pending for at least two years, were automatically cleared the day after the bill was passed.
  • We continued to provide Personal Difference Allowance, which 730,550 pensioners received, just before Christmas.
  • We enable 30,000 illegal immigrants who have been living in our country for more than three years to work legally and pay insurance contributions to e-EFKA.

With the aim of further reducing pending pensions, we launched the pilot process of informing insured persons of the e-EFKA about their pension right and the submission of a pension application.

Finally, our Recovery Fund target for 2023 in the medium term was 303,800,000. Payments of 299,329,568 euros were disbursed, i.e. we reached 98.5%.

Also, they have already been signed within 2023 and will be disbursed in the first days of 2024, another 14.5 million euros.

The Ministry of Labor is among the first five ministries both in terms of absorption of Recovery Fund resources and in absolute amounts. We are utilizing all available European resources for the benefit of Greek citizens, advancing investments and reforms in the modernization of the labor market, training and improving the skills of the workforce and upgrading the service of our fellow citizens by the insurance system.”