Baby boomers are retiring
Between 165,000 and 200,000 workers are expected to retire every year up until at least 2030
The country’s social security system is in for seven difficult years, as up until 2030 the generation of baby boomers will be rushing to retire.
Experts point out that although the “great exodus” began in 2022 and will last until 2030, with about 165,000 to 200,000 people retiring annually, the bulk of retirements will occur from 2025 onward.
A European Commission study and the monthly data of the Ministry of Labor from the Atlas information system show that the wave of flight is irreversible. In less than 10 years, the employed are expected to decrease to 4.09 million people in 2030 from about 4.196 million in 2023. In the same period, the number of pensioners is set to increase by about 130,000.
In fact, pension expenditure will fall below 14% (it was 14.4% in 2023) after 2035, when the entire generation of baby boomers will have retired, so that by 2050 it will gradually drop to 13.6%.
As Panteion University professor Vassilis Betsis explains to Kathimerini, the 1946-1949 civil war in Greece delayed the baby boom, which started in 1955 and lasted until in 1967.
“The retirement of the baby boomer generation started from 2022 and will last until 2030. However, the largest volume of retirements will take place from 2025 to 2030, because in the period 1960-1965 births were higher than the average of 156,000 births,” he points out.
According to the general secretary of social security, Nikos Milapidis, in the latest actuarial studies, such forecasts have been made, and despite the increase in pensioners, the amount of pensions is guaranteed. “The pressure is expected and controllable,” he argues, and adds that because we are talking about a generation of qualified workers, if they choose to work with the new favorable regime of employed pensioners, then they will contribute to the system, while also increasing their incomes. For some, the new regime with the abolition of the -30% penalty in the pensions of those who are still working, is an extra factor in increasing retirements.
