The payment of all January pensions until December 23, 2024 was announced by the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Niki Kerameos, in an interview she gave to OPEN.

The minister underlined that these pensions will include the 2.4% increase that has been imposed horizontally, while the extraordinary aid to pensioners who maintain a personal difference will be paid until December 18.

Regarding the pending pensions, Ms. Kerameos noted that in the last few years a great effort has been made to reduce backlogs of years. “We constantly have lower numbers. Main pension arrears in 2019 were around 200,000. In June 2024, we had 21,000 and, now, we have fallen to 16,000,” explained the Minister of Labor.

Regarding supplementary pensions, Ms. Kerameos emphasized that the backlog in 2019 was over 150,000 and, now, it is 32,000. As he said, “a greater difficulty is found in the auxiliaries, because the file is paper. One of the major projects, which are “running” in this period and efforts will be intensified in 2025, is the digitization of the entire archive. The digitization project will make a decisive contribution, so that all systems interoperate with each other and reduce the backlogs even more.”

On the average time to grant a pension, the Labor Minister said that it used to be 18 months, now it is 58 days and now 1,200 pensions are issued per day, crediting this great progress to e-EFKA workers.

Referring to the criticism made by the opposition parties regarding the minimum wage and collective bargaining, Ms. Kerameos clarified that the social partners have the possibility to agree on more beneficial terms for the workers, pointing out the following: “We simply put a “threshold”, a floor in the negotiation, because the minimum wage worker wants to know at least what his salary will be, to do his planning, to know how he will pay the rent, the supermarket and the energy. We have a duty from the European Union to put up a shield of protection for every worker in the country whether they are in the public or private sector and, from there, the social partners can agree something more favorable.”

Then, the Minister of Labor analyzed the changes that are coming to the process of defining the minimum wage with the bill, which was recently passed in the Parliament, adding that, with the new provisions, any reduction of the minimum wage is prohibited, the minimum wage is also extended to the Public and, from 2028 onwards, the minimum wage will be calculated, based on an algorithm. “The government is throwing away the power it had and, now, the minimum wage will be set according to the accuracy and productivity of the Greek economy. As market prices rise, so will the minimum wage,” explained Ms. Kerameos.

Asked about the Collective Labor Agreements, the minister announced an “in-depth dialogue with the social partners” within the next 12 months, which is explicitly provided for in the European Directive. “I will also add with the parties, the Directive doesn’t tell us this, this is my proposal, that is, let’s look at it with the social partners, but also with the parliamentary parties, to discuss how we can actually raise the coverage rate from Collective Agreements, which is low” added Ms. Kerameos. In fact, he noted that in many European countries the coverage rate is low. “We must establish incentives to strengthen the conclusion of Collective Labor Agreements. One part is what incentives will be established and another part is for representatives of employees and employers to sit at the table and agree, as they have done for example in tourism and catering,” she said.

With regard to the “Career Day” action of the Public Employment Service (DYPA), which takes place on Saturday 14 December 2024 in Dusseldorf, with the aim of attracting Greeks living in Germany, by highlighting professional opportunities in the Greek labor market, the minister underlined that it is the first time that DYPA’s “Career Days” are held abroad and he added that at the end of November the ministry organized a corresponding event in Amsterdam, where 1,100 Greeks participated.

“We, as the Ministry of Labor, make the “bridge” between Greek citizens who work abroad, but are thinking of returning and businesses, which are active in our country and are looking for specialized human resources” commented Ms. Kerameos.