Market gets 100,000 new jobs
Employment soared in May, but food service and tourism sectors fail to woo young workers
Employment approached the record levels of the last year before the pandemic in the previous month, with 99,956 new jobs created in May 2022 according to the Ergani system data.
With the economy keeping its eyes on tourism and with early indications pointing to a bumper year, enterprises proceeded with recruitment, which prevailed over the redundancies, resulting in the creation of almost 100,000 new jobs.
Nevertheless, 60% of the posts were covered by people over the age of 30, as young people have turned their backs on seasonal or occasional employment in the food service and tourism sectors, resulting in entrepreneurs having difficulties in finding staff. Almost three out of 10 hirings concerned over-45-year-olds, while another 30% of were employees aged between 30 and 44 years – i.e. employees with experience in tourism or food service who know the consequences of seasonal work and are employed in the industry.
Most of the new jobs (32,012) concerned employees aged 45-64, followed by the category of 30-44-year-olds with 30,170 new jobs, and the groups of the youngest employees, i.e. 15-24 and 25-29, with 22,592 and 13,956 positions respectively.
According to the data of the Labor Ministry’s Ergani database, recruitment in May was significantly increased compared to a year ago, amounting to 326,359 hirings compared to 255,987 in May 2021 (a rise of 70,372 posts).
There has been an increase in redundancies as well, as the government measures to protect businesses and workers from the effects of the pandemic are coming to an end and companies that were bound by an “employment clause” are slowly letting employees go. While last year redundancies came to 58,391, this year they increased by 60,490, reaching 118,881.
In the year to end-May, the balance of jobs is also positive, resulting in a total of 248,079 new jobs, i.e. 70,971 more than a year earlier.
May’s performance was the third best of the last 20 years. Only in 2018 (108,725 new jobs) and in 2019 (105,284 new jobs) did Ergani record a better performance.
