Skills shortage and undeclared work Greece introduces the six-day week

Employers in Greece can propose to their employees that they work six days a week instead of five. In return, they receive 40 to 115 percent more pay.

The offer could be worthwhile for employees: For the sixth working day, Greeks* will receive an extra 40 percent more pay by law; if this involves Sundays and public holidays, there is even an extra 115 percent. This means that Greeks could work more in future than they already do: they have the most working hours per week in the EU.

Trade unions criticize the law as exploitation despite the planned additional payments, but Labour Minister Adonis Georgiadis is not deterred: "As there is a great shortage of workers, especially in industry, overtime is being worked - and it is often paid in the black," he argued during the debate on the law in parliament. The new regulation, on the other hand, would give everyone the right to extra paid work. Undeclared work would be put a stop to.

Skills shortage due to financial crisis

The shortage of skilled workers in Greece is primarily 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 still not recovered from this brain drain, even though the economy is on the up.

Despite a current unemployment rate of around 11%, the shortage of workers affects not only industrial companies and the IT sector, but also agriculture and tourism in particular. However, the conservative Greek government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is seeking other solutions. For example, it is trying to recruit seasonal workers for the harvest as well as service and cleaning staff from Egypt, India and other emerging countries.

Law targets shift workers

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, 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.

This once again disproves the myth of lazy Greeks, as reported by numerous international media outlets during the financial crisis. According to the statistics authority Eurostat, the Greeks lead the European league table of weekly working hours with 39.8 hours. For Germany, the list shows an average of 34 hours per week. However, even the Greeks should not overdo it, as the new law from Athens stipulates: 48 hours per week is the maximum.