Nominal wage increases should not be excessive, the Greek parliament’s Budget Office warned in a report released on Monday on the 4th quarter of 2023.
The report is published after the government raised the minimum wage from 780 euros to 830 as of April 1 and while workers unions criticize the raise as “insufficient to cover up daily needs iin an environment of constant price increases.”
The Budget Office said these raises should be proportionate to economy’s ability to sustain them. It also said that the Greek economy continues to grow, while the growth rate of real GDP in the 4th quarter of 2023 at 1.2% compared to the 4th quarter of 2022 (2.0%) and 2023 overall.
Greece’s growth rate (2.0%) is significantly higher than the respective one for the eurozone, as assessed by Eurostat for 2023 (0.4%).
In its assessment, the Budget Office said the annual forecast of annual growth for 2024 is 2.5% for the economy and 2.9% for inflation, consistent with other updated forecasts by the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the Bank of Greece. The latter three assess the Greek economy’s growth rate for 2024 between 2.1% and 2.9%.