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Coronavirus hits Greek labor market: Rotation work, salary cuts by 50%

The coronavirus crisis has dramatically hit the Greek labor market and allows companies to operate on staff’s rotation work thus cutting employee’s salaries by 50%. Employers can also suspend workers’ contracts.

The Greek government issued a legislative act that allows employers and corporations to introduce a new system of rotational work” employees can work for only two weeks per month and have their salaries cut accordingly, by 50 percent.

Companies can implement this measure for up to six months.

The measure is part of an extraordinary package to tackle the impact of the coronavirus epidemic and concerns businesses listed as affected by the crisis.

The list of companies suspending their operation is constantly growing.

The same enterprises have also been granted the option of suspending some or all of their workers’ contracts so that they do not have to foot their wage bills, in which case each of those employees will receive 800 euros from the state.

The new system of rotational work may be used in combination with the labor contract suspension measure by the same company or employer.

The measure is valid only if the businesses will not fire or lay off workers.

Next to the 800 euros for workers for March and April, also self-employed and free lancers will receive the same amount.

There is talk that if the situation continues as for the time being, the state support for workers will be 400 euros for May.

Of course, not registered employees will not receive anything and will have to look how they will make ends meet without any income.

Government spokesman Stelios Petsas said that the government has already announced three sets of measures amounting to 6 billion euros for March and April alone in order to support enterprises and workers.

The fiscal cost now comes to 4.7 billion euros, which corresponds to 2.5 of Greece’s GDP, he noted.

He added that the state of the real economy is obviously deteriorating steadily, which was why the government was carrying out evaluations on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, there are rumors that the government may also cut wages of the civil servants.

PS 400 euros per crisis month is a nice gesture, unless you have to pay rent, utility and communication bills. then oyu can live on cheap pasta until the crisis is over.

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One comment

  1. So, the ND government found a way to implement the British system of “employed poor”, deregulating the labour market with the excuse of a global pandemic. With this measure, they protect big business and their own pockets, while making ordinary people suffer a collapsed quality of life. The same sh!t as the Troika inflicted on Greece, with the collaboration of Pasok and ND. This time it is entirely from Greek politicians. i was waiting for it to happen, well before the Coronavirus problem emerged.