Greece Promises to Curb Investment and Boost Unemployment

I received the following alarming letter:

Sir,

Greece will never cease to amaze. No sooner have Berlin and Paris agreed European support for Greece (10-11th Feb) at the EU summit, than legislators back home quietly prepare for “revolutionary labour reform”.
Most will have heard about Greek accounting and statistics, so creative legislation should come as no surprise. However, a blunder of this magnitude is likely to amaze even the most cynical critic.
To whit: a new bill allegedly prepared in Camera proposes even greater complexity and rigidity to complement Greece's already chaotic labour law. Quite tragicomically, the bill is titled “Guarantees against Job Insecurity” and effectively ensures that investment and jobs will be swiftly moved out of the country only just bailed out by its Europartners.

This text proposes to effectively eliminate temporary labour, drastically limit part-time occupation, eliminate choice in recruitment, and practically eradicate contractual employment. All of this is regulated under strict bureaucratic procedures, contractual mumbo-jumbo, and protected by heavy fines…

The idea, it would seem, is to coerce employers and would be employers to turn exclusively to full-time, indefinite term (lifetime?) employment for their employees.

Wishful thinking.

The fact that this bill contravenes European directives ratified by Greece is one issue – and not always a key issue in Greece as we have seen throughout the years. What is immediately scary, however, is that it is set to accelerate unemployment to new heights adding at least 22.000 to the present toll from one day to another. While official unemployment statistics are, well, Greek, total unemployment could reach 22% of the total work force in the first semester alone estimates a Ministry of Labour official. The reasons why Greeks rally –nay stampede – for positions in the job-secure, pay-secure, and legislation–secure bloated Public Sector is clearly evident.

So, now that Germany is leading Greece’s fiscal bail-out team, which country will be willing to bail out Greece’s newly unemployed?

Kind regards,
Greg Alexander
Recruitment partner, Strategy mentor.
Athens



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