Part-time work is borne out of necessity for most in Greece
Part-time employment is a matter of necessity for seven out of every 10 people in Greece who work in such jobs, according to Eurostat data for 2017. In total, an estimated one in every five workers (19.4 percent), or at least 43 million people aged 15 to 64 years, worked part-time last year in the European Union.
In the last 15 years part-time work has ranged between 15.6 percent and 19.5 percent of total employment in the EU. Last year the rate came to 19.4 percent in the bloc but just 9.7 percent in Greece.
Both on the European and the Greek level, the share of part-timers was much bigger among women (31.7 percent in the EU and 14.1 percent in Greece) than men (8.8 percent in the EU and 6.6 percent in Greece).
According to the latest data from the Single Social security Entity (EFKA) that are based on employment declarations (APDs) submitted by employers, almost one in every three employees (30 percent), work part-time and with a monthly salary of less than 400 euros.
The APDs submitted for November 2017 showed that out of 2,071,338 declared salary workers, 629,687 worked in flexible forms of labor and have to live on an average gross salary of just 385.53 euros a month.
Crucially, the Eurostat figures are based on the entire set of salary workers, so the rate is reduced in Greece as there is a high rate of self-employment in this country.
The main feature of part-time work in Greece is that it is borne out of necessity: While in the EU only 26.4 percent said that this model of work was not their choice, the same rate soars to 70.2 percent of part-timers in Greece. A similar pattern is seen across other countries in the south of Europe, as in Cyprus it came to 67.4 percent, in Italy 62.5 percent and in Spain 61.1 percent.
