Jobs increase, but on lower pay
Employment increased in Greece last year but at the cost of diminishing salaries, data from the Single Social Security Entity (EFKA) have shown.
The figures, which are based on the employment declarations of employers, known in Greek by the acronym APD, show that new jobs were mainly being created in areas with relatively low productivity and salaries, both concerning full- and part-time work.
From a total of 2.2 million workers at 274,750 businesses and construction projects across the country last November, almost one in three, or 650,000 workers were in flexible employment (part-time or shift work), earning an average monthly salary of 384.22 euros. The other 1.55 million workers had full-time employment.
The average payment handed to all workers, including full- and part-timers, came to 916.03 euros per month, down 1 percent from a year earlier when it had come to 926.14 euros. The average monthly salary for full-time employees came to 1,137.24 euros gross in November 2018.
Salaried continued to decline from the previous years, as in November 2016 the average salary recorded by what was then Social Security Foundation (IKA) in the private sector had amounted to 954.44 euros per month.
Part-time employment contracts have played had a decisive role in the reduction of the average private sector salary. Last November, 29.5 percent of workers were declared with EFKA as part-timers, down from about 30.5 percent in the same month in 2017 and 2016.
The statistics also show considerable differences between the two genders: Among the companies employing 10 or more people full time, 56.68 percent of employees are men, while the majority (55.39 percent) of part-time employees are women. There is also a chasm between the regular salaries of men and women; female part-timers get 95.48 percent of the men’s salary, and female full-timers receive just 87.27 percent of their male counterparts’ pay.
