By T. Economopoulos

A string of recent surveys (including one conducted by VPRC on behalf of Skai radio, the results of which were published in yesterday’s Kathimerini) indicate that there has been an increase in the proportion of citizens backing a radical change in the operation of the labor market (chiefly relating to workers’ privileges).

There also appears to have been a dramatic increase in the proportion of those who want an end to permanent jobs in the public sector.

A few years ago, the same poll would probably have had precisely the opposite results.

Indeed, it seems that times have changed and the public has begun to realize that the low quality of services it has to put up with in public sector offices is chiefly due to the indifference of most of the employees at such services toward the people they ostensibly serve as well as the security they feel in their posts (a feeling that is virtually non-existent in the private sector) because their jobs are not dependent on performance and productivity.

Interestingly, the study also reveals that most young people are keen to find a job in the public service, while older respondents are increasingly intolerant of its shortcomings, the consequences of which they have to suffer. In short, young people seek security in a system which their parents want disciplined and purged.