The best performance our country has ever made in the overseas employment is recorded by the official Eurostat figures released yesterday, as announced by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
According to them, only 3.1% of employees worked more than 49 hours a week, with the European average of 3.4%.
It is noted that the percentage of employees who overturned Greece in 2019 was 5.1%.
In its announcement, the Ministry of Labor notes that a portion of the opposition press chose to highlight “with furnace titles the overtime data concerning the freelancers in order to present to their reading audience a picture of an overall exploitation of employees”.
“On the basis of the same elements that they cite, one in three self -employed people said increased hours. It is a timeless feature of the Greek labor market associated with the structure of the economy and not a recent phenomenon.
Even for self -employed the rates of 2023 and 2024 are lower than in previous years.
The reality in the labor market is constantly improved and completely clear, despite the efforts of some to distort it, ”the Labor Ministry said.
And adds:
«– The government has achieved, through targeted policies, an unprecedented reduction in unemployment. According to the latest data, in May, unemployment was 7.9%, that is, 10 whole points below the percentage received by the Mitsotakis government in July 2019.
– Over the last five years, more than 500,000 jobs have been added.
– 3 out of 4 positions are now full -time, without increasing the average employment hours.
– Overgreasure has fallen under the European average, thanks to the specific government interventions of recent years.
In particular:
– The decisive factor was the institutionalization of the digital work card to record the real working time of the workers. The measure is already successfully implemented and protects 1,850,000 banks, supermarket employees, insurance companies, security companies, DEKO, industry, retail, catering and tourism and now on the energy and the financial sector.
– Increase in Labor Inspectorate controls to comply with insurance legislation. Indicatively, it is reported that in 2024 79,207 inspections were carried out, 18,264 sanctions were imposed and fines of € 49.5 million were collected (7.6%, 13.8% and 11.4% respectively compared to 2023). In 2018 we had 54,294 checks, with 8,473 fines of EUR 33.7 million.
– The percentage of full -time employees in 2024 amounted to 76.41% versus 69.2% in 2019, that is, more than three in four employees currently work under full -time. Overall, the full -time employment percentage in 2024 increased by 7.21 percentage points since 2019. In 2024, Greek employees worked on average 38 hours, ranking the country at the 7th highest position among EU countries for 38.1 hours in 2023.
– It is recalled that the government has set the aim of increasing full -time and increasing wages to stimulate household income».