If businesses and self-employed professionals are the centerpiece of this year’s package to be announced at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF), employees are the group expected to feel the impact most directly in their paychecks. The government is not planning to reinstate the 13th and 14th monthly salaries for public-sector employees. Instead, it is considering targeted measures that combine wage increases, reductions in payroll deductions and additional support through meal vouchers.

The proposed reduction in social security contributions, which is being considered in two stages (a 0.5-percentage-point cut that is reportedly already agreed upon, with efforts to find fiscal room for an additional 1 percentage point), would also increase workers’ net pay. At the same time, the annual increase in the minimum wage remains a key policy tool, with the 2023 target of raising the minimum wage to €950 by 2027 now expected to be fully achieved.

Based on that progress, the prime minister is expected to set a new target of increasing the minimum wage to around €1,350–€1,400 per month by 2030, while the goal for the average full-time salary is expected to move closer to €2,000 per month. The previous target of an average salary of €1,500 had already been surpassed by 2025.

Beyond wages, the government is also placing emphasis on collective labor agreements. Encouraging the conclusion of such agreements and extending negotiated wage increases across more sectors and businesses is viewed as a way to spread pay increases more evenly and more quickly to workers whose earnings have remained largely stagnant for the past 15 years.

However, the measure attracting the greatest attention is the meal voucher. The government is considering increasing its daily value from €6 to €10, a proposal that had remained dormant for 20 years but has now been jointly submitted to the government by both employers’ and employees’ organizations (the General Confederation of Greek Workers, the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises, the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen and Merchants, the Hellenic Confederation of Commerce and Entrepreneurship, the Greek Tourism Confederation, and the Federation of Industries of Greece).

The measure would directly increase employees’ disposable income by up to €300 per month, particularly at a time of persistently high food prices. At the same time, it would improve companies’ competitiveness in attracting staff without significantly increasing non-wage labor costs through additional social security contributions.

In addition to wage increases and lower payroll deductions, the government has not ruled out a surprise measure for families with children, such as granting another one-off payment of €150 per child, similar to the benefit provided in April.

The overall message to employees is that the government is not promising one-time giveaways but rather seeking to build a path toward the gradual improvement of disposable income through a combination of wage increases, tax and social security relief, and targeted financial support.