A Master’s degree, a PhD qualification. They doesn’t count much in Greece of the economic crisis, of the high unemployment and the flexible forms of work with reduced working hours and reduced wages. Full time jobs are a dream for the more than one million unemployed. Part-Time contracts rule the Greek labor market. Career chances are slim.
According to data (second quarter of 2016) from the Greek Statistics Agency ELSTAT,
7,500 postgraduate work part-time for a monthly gross salary of €403. The net salary of €338 is even below the unemployment allowance which is €360.
21,400 highly skilled people with Master’s degree are unemployed.
In the most productive age category 30-44, there are currently 10,400 postgraduates without a job.
Among the economic active population, 160,000 people are highly skilled.
The painful consequence: Brain Drain
Slim chances for the development oh highly skilled employees, wages stuck in low levels and the overall situation of the country have led to the phenomenon of brain drain.
Equally impressive is that apart from the effects of the economic crisis, many companies have no sufficient means to make use of talented workers or manage “talents.”
No wonder that scientists and highly qualified personnel are seeking a career opportunity abroad. According to a recent study by Endeavor Greece, these Greeks have produced more than 50 billion in GDP in their new “homelands” away from Greece since the beginning of the crisis.
Greece loses the bright talents, the resources, that can provide added value in the domestic market, and at the same time, it loses taxes and other contributions are that are now credited to the revenues of the countries of migration.
Endavour Greece estimates that 350,000 people left the country form January 2008 to June 2016. An estimation by the Bank of Greece puts the number at 427,000.
It is estimated that these people, mainly of high and higher education, contribute €12.9 billion annually to the GDP of the host countries, mainly Germany and the United Kingdom.
They also contribute with €9.1billion in taxes: 7.9bn in income tax and social security contributions and 1.2bn in Value Added Tax, – cumulative since 2008.
It is estimated that Greece has spent €8bn for the education of these labor craft.
The export of “highly skilled workers” has become No 1 Export product of Greece, followed by fuel and aluminum products, medication products, olive oil, fish, olives, tobacco products, information systems, dairy products, cotton and peaches in terms of revenues.
“In conclusion and very obviously, while in the products export the generated revenue remains in Greece, the professional activity of the Greeks abroad primarily benefits the host countries, both in the short and in the long run,” notes daily Naftermporiki that posted the article.
One more reason I would add here is the narrow-minded attitude of many business owners, the atmosphere of high competition -in negative sense- in the working environment and the usual “nepotism” attitude.
PS I personally know two postgraduates who have after 3 and 4 years of unemployment got a full time job each for 700 euro gross. They got their jobs through their fathers’ connections.
I also know a handful of doctors (aged 30-35) who have left for Sweden, Germany and the UK.
And the 4th Reich’s plan sails on: the land empty and acquired for free. They have converted Greece into desert land, where nothing grows, with the exception of treacherous crooked politicians. If we could set up an export business selling their genes, the Germans would pay good money for genetic material with which they could contaminate the rest of the world.