Overtime
Exploitation or solution to shortage of skilled workers? Greece introduces six-day week
A worker walks across a construction site in Greece’s capital Athens
© Imago Images
After the financial crisis in 2008, the Greeks were considered lazy. But people there work more than the European average. And the government adds a few more working hours on top of that.
Despite the planned additional payments, unions criticize the law as exploitation, but Labor Minister Adonis Georgiadis is undeterred: “Since there is a great shortage of workers, especially in industry, overtime is being worked – and this is often paid under the table,” he argued during the debate on the law in parliament. With the new regulation, however, everyone would have the right to extra-paid special work and illegal work would be put to a stop.
The shortage of skilled workers in Greece is mainly due to the country’s severe financial crisis from 2010 to 2018. At that time, the country was on the verge of bankruptcy and hundreds of thousands of well-educated young people emigrated to seek their fortune abroad. Greece has not recovered from this brain drain to this day, even though the economy is on the up.
Greece’s solution to the shortage of skilled workers
The lack of workers, despite an unemployment rate of currently around 11 percent, affects not only industrial companies and the IT sector, but also agriculture and tourism. However, the conservative Greek government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is seeking other solutions. For example, attempts are being made to recruit seasonal workers from Egypt, India and other emerging countries for harvest work and as service and cleaning staff.
The new law on the six-day week, on the other hand, is aimed at companies that have to maintain operations twelve or even 24 hours a day and seven days a week – such as industrial companies, but also telecommunications companies and other service providers. The public sector and state-owned companies are also part of the target group.
Greeks work harder in Europe
The myth of lazy Greeks, which was spread by numerous international media outlets, especially German ones, during the financial crisis, has been refuted once again. According to the statistics agency Eurostat, Greeks top the European list of working hours per week with 39.8 hours. For Germany, the average weekly working hour is 34 hours. However, the new law from Athens stipulates that Greeks should not work too much either: 48 hours per week is the maximum.
In Germany, CSU leader Markus Söder recently praised the Greek concept and called on Germans to work harder. “In Greece, for example, there is now a six-day week, while we are discussing a four-day week. We will not catch up that way. We have to work more again, but more work has to be worthwhile,” he told the “Bild” newspaper.