The Minister of the Interior, Niki Kerameos, spoke today, Wednesday, about the reduction of insurance contributions, the increases that will be made in pensions, the changes in the unemployment benefit and also about the digital work card.

Regarding the reduction by 1 unit in the insurance contributions from 1-1-2025 Mrs. Kerameos argued that with this measure labor costs are reduced, employment is stimulated and new incentives are given to create jobs.

The minister clarified that “in the five-year period 2019-2024 and now 2025, i.e. the 6th year, we will have a reduction in insurance contributions by 5.5 percentage points”.

Mrs. Kerameos also referred to unemployment rate saying it fell below 10% for the first time in 15 years.

For pension increases

“It is estimated that it will fluctuate between 2.2-2.5%” said Mrs. Kerameos, clarifying that the exact percentage will be finalized in December depending on how much inflation will be.

He pointed out that approx 2,000,000 pensioners will see an increase in their pensions.

For unemployment benefits

Mrs. Kerameos stated that the philosophy of this allowance has been the same for the last 70 years. For this reason he argued that the government is planning a pilot program aimed at philosophy and has 2 axles

1 to become fairer in how it will be given and
2. supporting vulnerable fellow citizens and motivating them to find work

For the digital job card

Finally, Mrs. Kerameos mentioned that the pilot application of the digital work card in tourism and restaurants starts today.

As he said, it is important because it aims to protect the employee.

“The goal is to record the actual time the employee works in order to be paid for that time.