Next Wednesday the platform will be activated for the payment of maternity allowance to non-employees (including freelancers, self-employed and farmers), as stated by the Minister of Labor and Social Insurance, Domna Michailidou speaking at the 9th Delphi Economic Forum.

He described the situation in the labor market as “stressful” and added that “it is difficult to bring a symmetry between what the employees and what the employers are asking for. There is no magic wand.” Mrs. Michailidou commented on some of the changes that the ministry has made, citing as an example the legislative regulation for working pensioners.

As he said a month ago there were 26,000 pensioners registered in the labor market and “as soon as we stopped withholding 30% of the pension, within a month they reached 64,000”.

Finally, according to Mrs. Michailidou, many women, at some point in their lives, wish to be employed part-time. As he noted, the ministry is looking into how the employer can pay for part-time work and the state can finance part of the contributions or even more.

“There is an increased need for talent with specialized knowledge and skills,” said CEO and Vice President of ERGO Insurance, Nikos Antimisaris.

The company, as he commented, invests in human resources which is, according to him, “the most important asset”.

He added that the insurance industry is unknown and “people don’t know the career prospects they can have” within it.

He added that the industry should become more extroverted so that the prospective employee realizes that there are great opportunities for many skills.

The CEO and President, Vodafone Greece, Haris Broumidis, characterized the lack of specialized personnel in the technology sector as a “global problem”.

According to surveys, as he pointed out, three out of four employers have a problem finding talent.

He underlined that despite the fact that in Greece unemployment is down to 10%, she has a gigantic task ahead of her, “perhaps greater than what other European countries have.”

And he emphasized that by 2030, according to research, “we will need another 300 thousand IT graduates. Currently the annual demand for IT graduates is 15 thousand and those entering the job market amount to 8 thousand”.

For his part, the CEO of Deloitte, Dimitris Koutsopoulos pointed out that one tenth of businesses cannot find the workers they need.

He added that in a study, 43% of respondents answered that they cannot find the people they need even within the organizations.

Automation can be a solution, as “it will move things faster and free up human resources that can be used for other things”, as well as the use of workers from abroad and flexible working.