Firms to offer vouchers and not raises
Food vouchers, teleworking, insurance plans, company cellphones and cars are some of the benefits that enterprises are giving their employees instead of raises these days.
The reason they give is high social security contributions and taxes, which instead of decreasing, are increasing, gnawing away at employees’ real income.
As a result, salary increases have a greater benefit for the state than for the employees. For example, from an increase of 100 euros of an employee with gross earnings of €2,000 per month, the employee collects €51, the employer pays €122 and the state earns €62, more than the employee.
A Randstad survey tracked salary trends for this year and the key findings were that overall labor costs (salaries and benefits) are the number one challenge for this year for 48% of businesses in Greece (up from 32% in 2023).
It also found that 72% are considering salary increases within the year, even if most of them are targeting rates in line with inflation (i.e. 40% of the 72% want to be limited to gross increases of 1% to 5%). So, as deductions rise driven by inflation, more and more employers are looking to the benefits solution.
