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3. Greece's unemployment rate is almost 11%. What a bizarre situation.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
One wonders if increasing the compensation offered for these jobs might result in less vacancies. I mean, I've heard theories (only theories, mind you) that this could have some effect. Seems unlikely, but maybe worth a try?
- SeanAnderson 2y ago
  I don't know a lot about Greek economy. It seems like it could be a scenario where consumers can't afford higher prices. If prices goes up then consumers bail, companies go out of business, unemployment goes down but total available jobs goes down, too. Instead, everyone's grinding their way to the bottom which isn't great, either.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    The Greek economy is highly seasonal. There's tourist season and off season.
- stavros 2y ago
  There are no vacancies. On the contrary, there's a whole slew of 20-somethings willing to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for six months for 1k/mo so they have some money during the winter.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    From TFA: > However, at least the pay is good on Mykonos, which cannot be said for some of the less well-known Greek holiday destinations. > All of this is why hotel-owners in regions like the popular Chalkidiki peninsula in northern Greece are having trouble finding enough workers. As a result, some restaurants and hotels in Greece will open late this summer.
    - stavros 2y ago
      Well, at least TFA is right about the horrid conditions. I don't know how right it is about the shortage, I'll tell you tomorrow when I'm there. The prices are already exorbitant, though, so I'd be surprised if the business owners couldn't afford to pay workers a bit more to entice them to come. If there's a worker shortage, why will hotels open later? Sounds to me like an excuse to cover up a less-busy-than-expected opening season.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    From the opening text of TFA: > From the construction industry to the tourism sector, Greek employers cannot find the staff they need.
    - bluepuma77 2y ago
      Yes, but what’s the reason behind this? If you have bad working conditions (overtime, weekends) and pay very low salary, who wants those jobs? Greece is in EU, so the workers can just move to better paying places (Germany, France, Nordics). Maybe they rather need to tackle their many times mentioned corruption problems, so the value created can be distributed also among the workers. So that work becomes worthwhile again.
      - jq-r 2y ago
        Exactly the same story over here in Croatia. It's a narrative from political elites blaming "lazy and demanding" workers. The real truth is that working conditions, salaries and culture suck, and yes, workers are emigrating to other EU countries like never before in history of the country/region. Politicians are crying their eyes out how people don't want to work so they're "forced" to let immigration being rampant. All the while being corrupted like there is no tomorrow (and probably there isn't). This is happening everywhere and there are slight differences depending if those are jobs in tourism or not. In tourism terrible cafe owners are complaining that waiters cost too much (they don't), hotel owners are paying minimum level wages to immigrants (why paying full salary to a local?), local public transit company is complaining that that cannot find drivers (so: immigration). All of this is complete BS. The standard of living is going down the drain, the difference between a tourist and local's buying power is larger and larger, politicians are doing everything in their powers to enrich themselves fuck all, same with judiciary, and public health services works only on paper. We're completely screwed. And related, this reminds me about 20 years ago I was constantly hearing and reading from the media how domestic IT is sorely missing workers of any kind. Which was bs, they then wanted almost minimum wage experienced workers, just like they still want now.
- fransje26 2y ago
  Why pay them more, if you can make them work two extra hours per day, for free.. :-/
PartiallyTyped 2y ago
Something you should consider is that plenty of people are simply not registered and take money under the table because it is beneficial to them.
whazor 2y ago
Greece biggest economy is tourism, so it is seasonal. They need most workers in the summer.
cyberax 2y ago
It's a whole bunch of toxic factors working synergistically. The Greek economy is dominated by low-wage tourist-oriented businesses, a whopping 20-30% of employed people are directly involved in them. And they have to compete against Turkey, Egypt, and other low-income countries. These businesses simply cannot pay high salaries, there's no profit margin for it. So people don't want to work in these miserable conditions, and business owners have problems attracting labor.
- dotcoma 2y ago
  ...and so they make it mandatory to work 6 days a week ??
  - Arnt 2y ago
    Greece has a lot of businesses with seven-day working weeks. Hotels, that kind of thing. This rule change says, AIUI, that you can't work in that kind of job and insist on a five day working week. The money of working hours per week is unchanged.
- cool_dude85 2y ago
  Is it still common to expect workers to pay government-mandated bonuses back to their bosses in cash? I know this was a common practice some years ago.
  - stavros 2y ago
    I wouldn't say "common to expect", I'd say "bosses blackmail workers into it".
- stavros 2y ago
  Those low-wage tourist-oriented businesses are making crazy high margins and paying workers peanuts. Beaches keep getting gobbled up by multimillion-euro hotel complexes (unconstitutionally) so they can make money hand over fist by taking advantage of public property (with the appropriate kickbacks to the local politicians), while the local economy benefits minimally from whatever minimum-wage jobs are created in the process.
MattGaiser 2y ago
Eh, I suspect it is way lower and much of it is just welfare/tax fraud. When I was there, they gave huge cash discounts for everything.

One wonders if increasing the compensation offered for these jobs might result in less vacancies. I mean, I've heard theories (only theories, mind you) that this could have some effect. Seems unlikely, but maybe worth a try?

SeanAnderson 2y ago
I don't know a lot about Greek economy. It seems like it could be a scenario where consumers can't afford higher prices. If prices goes up then consumers bail, companies go out of business, unemployment goes down but total available jobs goes down, too. Instead, everyone's grinding their way to the bottom which isn't great, either.
- Arnt 2y ago
  The Greek economy is highly seasonal. There's tourist season and off season.
stavros 2y ago
There are no vacancies. On the contrary, there's a whole slew of 20-somethings willing to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for six months for 1k/mo so they have some money during the winter.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  From TFA: > However, at least the pay is good on Mykonos, which cannot be said for some of the less well-known Greek holiday destinations. > All of this is why hotel-owners in regions like the popular Chalkidiki peninsula in northern Greece are having trouble finding enough workers. As a result, some restaurants and hotels in Greece will open late this summer.
  - stavros 2y ago
    Well, at least TFA is right about the horrid conditions. I don't know how right it is about the shortage, I'll tell you tomorrow when I'm there. The prices are already exorbitant, though, so I'd be surprised if the business owners couldn't afford to pay workers a bit more to entice them to come. If there's a worker shortage, why will hotels open later? Sounds to me like an excuse to cover up a less-busy-than-expected opening season.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  From the opening text of TFA: > From the construction industry to the tourism sector, Greek employers cannot find the staff they need.
  - bluepuma77 2y ago
    Yes, but what’s the reason behind this? If you have bad working conditions (overtime, weekends) and pay very low salary, who wants those jobs? Greece is in EU, so the workers can just move to better paying places (Germany, France, Nordics). Maybe they rather need to tackle their many times mentioned corruption problems, so the value created can be distributed also among the workers. So that work becomes worthwhile again.
    - jq-r 2y ago
      Exactly the same story over here in Croatia. It's a narrative from political elites blaming "lazy and demanding" workers. The real truth is that working conditions, salaries and culture suck, and yes, workers are emigrating to other EU countries like never before in history of the country/region. Politicians are crying their eyes out how people don't want to work so they're "forced" to let immigration being rampant. All the while being corrupted like there is no tomorrow (and probably there isn't). This is happening everywhere and there are slight differences depending if those are jobs in tourism or not. In tourism terrible cafe owners are complaining that waiters cost too much (they don't), hotel owners are paying minimum level wages to immigrants (why paying full salary to a local?), local public transit company is complaining that that cannot find drivers (so: immigration). All of this is complete BS. The standard of living is going down the drain, the difference between a tourist and local's buying power is larger and larger, politicians are doing everything in their powers to enrich themselves fuck all, same with judiciary, and public health services works only on paper. We're completely screwed. And related, this reminds me about 20 years ago I was constantly hearing and reading from the media how domestic IT is sorely missing workers of any kind. Which was bs, they then wanted almost minimum wage experienced workers, just like they still want now.
fransje26 2y ago
Why pay them more, if you can make them work two extra hours per day, for free.. :-/

PartiallyTyped 2y ago

Something you should consider is that plenty of people are simply not registered and take money under the table because it is beneficial to them.

whazor 2y ago

Greece biggest economy is tourism, so it is seasonal. They need most workers in the summer.

cyberax 2y ago

It's a whole bunch of toxic factors working synergistically. The Greek economy is dominated by low-wage tourist-oriented businesses, a whopping 20-30% of employed people are directly involved in them. And they have to compete against Turkey, Egypt, and other low-income countries. These businesses simply cannot pay high salaries, there's no profit margin for it. So people don't want to work in these miserable conditions, and business owners have problems attracting labor.

dotcoma 2y ago
...and so they make it mandatory to work 6 days a week ??
- Arnt 2y ago
  Greece has a lot of businesses with seven-day working weeks. Hotels, that kind of thing. This rule change says, AIUI, that you can't work in that kind of job and insist on a five day working week. The money of working hours per week is unchanged.
cool_dude85 2y ago
Is it still common to expect workers to pay government-mandated bonuses back to their bosses in cash? I know this was a common practice some years ago.
- stavros 2y ago
  I wouldn't say "common to expect", I'd say "bosses blackmail workers into it".
stavros 2y ago
Those low-wage tourist-oriented businesses are making crazy high margins and paying workers peanuts. Beaches keep getting gobbled up by multimillion-euro hotel complexes (unconstitutionally) so they can make money hand over fist by taking advantage of public property (with the appropriate kickbacks to the local politicians), while the local economy benefits minimally from whatever minimum-wage jobs are created in the process.

MattGaiser 2y ago

Eh, I suspect it is way lower and much of it is just welfare/tax fraud. When I was there, they gave huge cash discounts for everything.