ECONOMY

Full-time jobs continue to dry up in October

Full-time jobs continue to dry up in October

The Labor Ministry’s Ergani database registered 98,420 more departures than hirings in October, while flexible forms of labor saw their share soar to five out of eight new jobs.

Hirings last month amounted to 208,643 while departures reached 307,063, of which 81,021 were voluntary and 226,0432 were contract terminations. Despite October’s negative balance, in the first 10 months of the year hirings outnumbered departures by 167,451, which the ministry said was the best performance during the January-October period since 2001.

However, figures also showed most new jobs created this year were not full-time, with 62.26 percent of hirings in October concerning flexible forms of labor (part-time or shift work), while only 37.74 percent of hirings were full-time positions. Of all hirings in January-October 2017, 54.4 percent comprised flexible forms of labor, up from 45.7 percent in 2013.

Yiannis Vroutsis, the New Democracy MP who set up the Ergani database when he was labor minister, stated that “the October data refute the virtual reality that the government is misleadingly attempting to construct regarding the state of the labor market. It is confirmed that the negative reversal of 2015 in the market with the domination of part-time work is spiraling out of control, while full-time work is shrinking dangerously.”

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