A new subsidized employment program for businesses that hire employees who live in mountainous and remote areas of the country was announced by the Minister of Labour and Social Security Niki Kerameos, in her interview with ANT1.
As the minister pointed out, decentralization is an important objective for the government, which is trying to provide incentives to employees and businesses to move toward the regions.
This is also the context for the new subsidized employment program for businesses that hire employees who live in mountainous and remote areas.
Under the program, the work will be done remotely, while 90% of the salary and social security contributions will be subsidized for 12 months.
“The idea is that this person stays in their home area, but can also work, can be employed, and if they prove their worth the business will keep them afterward”, Ms. Kerameos said, adding that the program is also an incentive for businesses that hire this category of employees as a priority.
Kerameos: “We are providing incentives for more work”
Referring to unemployment, the minister recalled that last week two historic records were recorded, a reduction in unemployment and an increase in employment.
At the same time, she stressed that the government's goal is to continuously provide incentives for more work.
“What interests us is to continuously provide incentives for more work and that is why we have also established a series of measures such as, for example, implementing the work allowance.
That is, if you are unemployed and find a job during the unemployment period, the unemployment benefit is converted into a work allowance at half its amount. Therefore, we provide incentives for you to find a job. If you are unemployed, we offer you three jobs. You refuse the first, you refuse the second, if you refuse the third as well, you no longer have a place in DYPA’s Unemployment Registry”, she said.
The minister also noted that in the last seven years there have been 600,000 more workers, while stressing, however, that the domestic labor force pool is “gradually being exhausted.”
“Rebrain Greece”: The next event in Munich
Ms. Kerameos also referred to Greeks abroad, whom she described as a “very promising pool” that must be utilized.
“What is one, I would say, very promising pool that we must make the most of. Greeks abroad. All those brilliant minds who left during the difficult years, mainly of the crisis,” she said.
As she said, the Rebrain Greece program continues its activities in cities abroad where there is a strong Greek presence, having already held events in London, Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and New York.
The minister announced that the next Rebrain Greece event will take place on November 28 in Munich, Germany.
“Germany has very great difficulties as you know. Greece currently has more than double the growth rate of the Eurozone average and at the same time has significant political stability,” she noted.
Indeed, as she revealed, 1,600 Greeks participated in a previous event in Germany, while there was also participation by Germans seeking work in Greece.
“Suddenly they notify me at the event. We have a question. I say what happened? They say, we have Germans. I say meaning? They say we have Germans who came to the event of Greek businesses to find work in Greece. Because Germany had entered degrees of recession during that period,” she said characteristically.