More than 180,000 pensioners are working, according to the Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Security, Panos Tsakloglu, in an interview with the One Channel.

Tsakloglou referred to the measure that allows pensioners who wish to work to deduct a resource of 10% of their salary for EFKA, when, in the past, the corresponding deduction was 30% of the pension, stressing that the success of this measure exceeded the initial estimates of the Ministry of Labor. “Our estimate was that we would reach almost 100,000 pensioners employed about two years from now. Already, in the first months of this year, more than 180,000 pensioners have declared themselves employed,” the deputy minister stressed.

Regarding the extraordinary work shift, Tsakloglou clarified that this measure concerns exclusively businesses of continuous operation, excluding catering and tourism, exclusively to meet emergency needs and in no case may it be applied on a permanent basis. He also noted that, during the extraordinary shift, the employee is paid with a 40% increase on the daily wage, while, if this shift coincides with a Sunday or a holiday, the increase reaches 115%.

On the development of wages in our country, the Deputy Minister of Labour spoke about the increase in the minimum wage, where the cumulative percentage increase from 2019 to date is significantly higher than the corresponding increase in the Consumer Price Index. As he said, “at this stage, we are in the process of constructing a reliable wage index. However, from all the other relevant indices available to us, it appears that their increase may not have been as large as that of the minimum wage, but they too have recorded remarkable growth over the corresponding period.”

With regard to unemployment, Tsakloglu commented that in countries where there is high unemployment, when the economy starts to pick up, what decreases first is the unemployment rate, while wages do not change substantially. “That is, employers can find many workers in the labour market at the prevailing wage. In the second phase, when labour market tightness appears, wages start to rise. This is what we are seeing in our country today. We see in many sectors that increased wages are given in order to be able to attract workers from other sectors of economic activity,” the Deputy Minister of Labour explained.

Regarding inflation, Tsakloglou admitted that it is a significant problem, but said that the government has taken several measures that, as the latest available statistics show, have begun to significantly slow the rate of inflation.