ECONOMY

Job surplus emerges in August

Job surplus emerges in August

Last month was the best August in five years as far as hirings in Greece were concerned, coinciding with peak tourist season.

Figures from the Labor Ministry’s Ergani database showed a year-on-year increase in job creation of 8,265 hirings last month to 195,425, while departures shrank annually by 2,594 to 192,314. Therefore the net result swung from a negative of 7,748 jobs lost in August 2018 to a positive of 3,111 new jobs last month.

At the same time, flexible forms of labor continued to dominate job creation, while the age group up to 24 years recorded more dismissals than hirings, and a significant number of full-time contracts were turned into part-time ones. Only 43.1 percent of hirings concerned full-time employment in August.

In a statement, Minister Yiannis Vroutsis said that “the particularly positive balance of salaried employment for August 2019 – the best since 2014 – coincides with the first full month of New Democracy in office and constitutes confirmation of the change in the political and economic climate, while proving wrong those who argued that the withdrawal of the regulation for a reasonable explanation for dismissals would bring about a wave of sackings.”

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