Mr Yannis Vroutsis speaking to Blooberg news agency stressed that “The reduction of social contributions alone will create about 30,000 new jobs in the next two years,” and added that “We have done almost everything required to reform the Greek labor market.”

The minister said that the social security contributions will fall under the average European rate by 3.9 percent bringing the total reduction since 2012 to 5%, enhancing thus the competitiveness of Greek economy .

“When I took office, we didn’t even know how many pensioners there were in Greece,” said Minister of Labour Mr Vroutsis and added, referring to the thousands who illegally received pensions of people who had died, that “The new system is foolproof.”.