Greek Labour Research Articles

Unveiling geographical patterns of hierarchy in the Greek labor market network: toward a multilayer “status-polus” model

Abstract This article develops a comprehensive framework for understanding labor markets’ spatial configuration and development dynamics, across multiple spatial scales. It applies to the Greek Labor Market Network and delineates five geographical zones of topological similarity, proposing a “status-polus” model capturing the coexistence between spatial development patterns, structural units, administrative scale, intermodality, and their underlying economic geography theories, by distance. The analysis reveals hierarchical structural variations, a transformation from continuous to point spatial patterns; a reduction and escalation of structural units; a U-shaped rule describing the hubs participation; and the challenges faced by insular regions to integrate this labor market.

Employment and Distributional Effects of Greece's National Minimum Wage

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the short‐run effects of minimum wage policies on the distribution of earnings and employment. We exploit the variation in the “bite” of the minimum wage across region‐industry cells, employing data from the Greek Labour Force Survey over the period 2015–2020. Using a Difference‐in‐Differences strategy, we estimate unconditional quantile regressions that yield economically important effects, at the bottom end of the earnings distribution. In particular, the estimated coefficients suggest a 14% and 7% rise in the wages for workers concentrated around the 10th and the 20th percentile, respectively. Importantly, we find that this does not come at the expense of disemployment effects, either at the extensive or at the intensive margin.

From Data to Insight: Transforming Online Job Postings into Labor-Market Intelligence

In the continuously changing labor market, understanding the dynamics of online job postings is crucial for economic and workforce development. With the increasing reliance on Online Job Portals, analyzing online job postings has become an essential tool for capturing real-time labor-market trends. This paper presents a comprehensive methodology for processing online job postings to generate labor-market intelligence. The proposed methodology encompasses data source selection, data extraction, cleansing, normalization, and deduplication procedures. The final step involves information extraction based on employer industry, occupation, workplace, skills, and required experience. We address the key challenges that emerge at each step and discuss how they can be resolved. Our methodology is applied to two use cases: the first focuses on the analysis of the Greek labor market in the tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing shifts in job demands, skill requirements, and employment types. In the second use case, a data-driven ontology is employed to extract skills from job postings using machine learning. The findings highlight that the proposed methodology, utilizing NLP and machine-learning techniques instead of LLMs, can be applied to different labor market-analysis use cases and offer valuable insights for businesses, job seekers, and policymakers.

Employee Trust in Management: Evidence from the Greek Private and Public Sectors

In contrast to the vast literature on trust in management, the aspect of employee trust towards managers in Greece is still under researched. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the factors which determine employee trust towards managers in the case of the Greek dual labor market. Primary data collected through a questionnaire survey of employees are explored in a model where employee and workplace characteristics and employee’s experiences of economic depression are predictors of employee trust towards managers. The analysis of two different samples "public sector with workplace representation" and "private sector without workplace representation" allow for inferences and conclusions about the effects of the duality of the Greek labor market on employee trust towards managers. The results indicate differences in the effects of age, workplace tenure and hours worked on employee trust in management between public sector employees (trade union members) and private sector employees (not being members).

The Reterritorialisation of Pontic Greeks in Germany and the Modernisation of Tradition

Greeks have a long diasporic history that demonstrates significant examples of all major diaspora classifications. Pontic Greeks of the Black Sea in particular, represent an excellent example of non-static diasporic typology. Starting as an imperial diaspora they were transformed to a victim diaspora, when forcefully expelled from their native lands in north-eastern Anatolia, seeking refuge in Greece and in areas of central Asia that were later annexed by the Soviet Union. Greece’s socioeconomic environment, during the better part of the twentieth century, was proven insufficient to support the full integration of refugees, while those Pontic Greeks who found themselves behind the Iron Curtain, were subjected to further victimization. In 1960 Greece signed a bilateral agreement with West Germany, allowing its citizens to seek Gastarbeiter employment, resulting in the formation of a Greek labour diaspora in the country, of which an estimated one third self-identifies as culturally Pontic. After Greece’s induction in the European Communities, but especially in the post-Maastricht era, the migratory regime for Greeks in Germany changed to that of European-expatriation, therefore progressively transforming their labour diaspora to a cultural one. From imperial, to victim, to labour, to cultural, Pontic Diaspora underwent a long process of reterritorialisation, in their journey from Anatolia to Germany.

Stepping Stone or Trap? Contextualising Precarity as a Sector and Age Phenomenon in the Greek Labour Market

Precarity has been consolidated as a central concept in theoretical and political discussions around labour market(s) and labour relations and conditions. Moreover, it has strongly been linked with specific sociodemographic groups, prominently with youth. Both theory and empirical evidence have suggested that precarity functions as a necessary step towards integration in the labour market, as a kind of indispensable rite of passage to labour adulthood. Nevertheless, despite its resonance, precarity remains a fuzzy buzzword that needs to be further problematized and evidenced. Focusing on a specific case study, that of Greece, we try to unfold a two-fold approach: to define and measure precarious forms of labour at the level/scale of the labour market as a whole and to detect and disentangle the role of age in specific sectors of economic activity where precarious labour is more prominent than in others.

Oil prices, labour market adjustment and dynamic quantile connectedness analysis: evidence from Greece during the crisis.

This paper examines the spillover effects transmission mechanism between oil prices, oil price uncertainty and oil price volatility on labour market in Greece, using static and dynamic quantile connectedness methodology (Diebold and Yilmaz Diebold and Yilmaz, Int J Forecast 28:57-66, 2012; Ando et al. Ando T, Greenwood-Nimmo N, Shin Y (2018) 'Quantile connectedness: Modelling tail behavior in the topology of financial networks', Working Paper. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3164772.). There is empirical evidence that the oil price variable is the most influential node of the energy variables on hirings and firings, suggesting the endogeneity of the labour market variables. Rolling estimation analysis based on the quantile VAR to capture the volatility spillovers across the whole conditional distribution shows a large variation of the total connectedness index, which is responsive to exogenous adverse and beneficial shocks. Further, our results point to a strong effect due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the state intervention to sustain the pandemic on the labour market. Overall, the analysis reveals a substantial higher time-varying connectedness of the system at the tails of the distribution, indicating that changes in energy markets asymmetrically affect the Greek labour market in recessionary and flourishing states of the economy, rather than normal times.

The Greek labour market before and after the pandemic: slack, tightness and skills mismatch

The Greek labour market before and after the pandemic: slack, tightness and skills mismatch

Unemployment transitions and the role of minimum wage: From pre-crisis to crisis and recovery

Abstract During the last decade, unemployment in Greece climbed up to 28%, almost quadrupling due to the economic crisis that hit Greece. In the present paper, we examine the determinants of the unemployment dynamics and the impact of the minimum wage on the probability of making a transition into and out of unemployment. We use micro-level data from the Greek Labour Force Survey (LFS) of the period 2004 to 2019 and control for several demographic factors, macro-economic conditions, regional differences, and changes in the statutory minimum wage. The results suggest that individual-level characteristics play an important role in making a transition into or out of unemployment. Changes in the real minimum wage are estimated to have either a statistically insignificant or a very small impact on unemployment entries and exits. Further, the impact of economy's growth rate follows the theoretical predictions as higher growth rates increase unemployment outflows and decrease inflows, while the regional differences are also important. Our findings persist even when we split the sample in three periods (pre-crisis, crisis, recovery). The results have important policy implications. Given that the disemployment effect of the minimum wage seems to be very limited in the Greek labor market, while the socioeconomic characteristics and regional characteristics play an important role, improving the skills of individuals through the educational system and reskilling or up-skilling programs while targeting specific regions may facilitate labor market mobility.

Analyzing employment by occupation across sectors in Greek labor market

In this paper we investigate the trends in the number of employees by occupational category across the economy's main sectors. For the purpose of our study we use mixed-fixed and random coefficient modeling, taking unemployment, gross value added, employee compensation, and proxies for labor force participation rate as the determining factors. Using annual data from 2000 to 2018, we examine the effects of the determining factors on the share of workers by sector and occupation. Our econometric research shows that the regression coefficients vary between sectors and categories of occupation and the proposed model correctly estimates the dependent variable and the heterogeneous variation of the random effects. Our model can be used to identify occupations with current and future shortages across sectors as well as for assessment and anticipation of employment needs. This study's main contribution is the provision of a flexible and innovative econometric tool, with minimal data requirements, for investigating and assessing employment across economic activities over time. Moreover, in conjunction with other forecasting macroeconomic models, it can offer accurate forecasts for future levels and trends in employment.

Practicing Anthropology in Greece: Knowledge, Skills and Rights in the Labour Market

In this paper we explore which kind of knowledge and skills developed by anthropology students through higher education are applied in the Greek labour market and how they are received by different professional sectors, such as central and local administration, private companies or NGOs. We also examine how professional rights of social anthropologists are being established, creating academic qualifications, lobbies and competitive relations among anthropology and other relevant disciplines. Furthermore, we illustrate the birth and establishment of practicing anthropology in Greece as it is being practiced in civil society institutions, local and international governmental and non-governmental organizations, especially since a proportionally big number of anthropologists are being employed in this field due to the recent European refugee crisis and the state of emergency that it brought to Greece and Europe. Through our analysis we wish to show that during the last three decades anthropology is gradually becoming socially and politically relevant in Greece. This process has started with the integration of the country in the core of European Union institutions and through the coexistence with diverse populations of migrant origins. The popularity of anthropology has been accelerated by the economic and refugee crisis of the last decade that multiplied the numbers of anthropologists working in the humanitarian sector. The discipline seems thus to come of age, with academic teaching and practicing anthropology being increasingly intertwined.

Confronting British Capital: An Evaluation of the Opposition of the Ottoman Greek Employees to the Administration of the Aidin Railway Company during the Strikes of September 1908

In the summer of 1908, following the recent outburst of the Young Turk Revolution, a wave of strikes swept the companies situated in the Ottoman Empire, including the Aidin Railway Company. The railway, although financed by British financial interests, encompassed a vast Greek labor force as technical support staff. Following the formation of the union, the workers requested a wage raise, as well as better working conditions. The management's denial to concede to the workers' demands resulted in the declaration of three alternate strikes. During the last one, the employees asked for the dismissal of the company's general manager Herbert Barfield on account of his derogatory attitude towards the indigenous personnel. However, the reason behind the strikes resided in the particular position of Asia Minor Greeks in the Ottoman Empire during the period preceding World War I and, more specifically, in their dual identity as both Christians and Ottomans.

The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on The Work Landscape and Employment Policy Responses: Insights From Labor Policies Adopted in The Greek Context

This study explores the impact of Covid-19 on labor relations and public labor relations policies. Focus is given to the worldwide effects of the pandemic on employment, the impact of Covid-19 on the European labor landscape, the impact of the pandemic on the Greek labor context, and the main labor policies and measures adopted in Greece during Covid-19. The analysis of the effects of the pandemic on employment is based on published research material from ILO, Eurofound and the database of the Greek Ministry of Labor. The section concerning the impact of Covid-19 on the labor relations policies and the measures adopted in the Greek context is based on the analysis of the Greek institutional framework and the related legislative acts. The main employment policy responses to Covid-19 pandemic are ensuring workers’ safety, maintaining adequate paid sick leave, upholding support for workers with caring needs, adapting job retention schemes, ensuring adequate income protection, expanding employment services and training and giving the young people the support they need. Planning and implementing effective labor policies is a demanding goal that requires cooperation and synergies among economic, research, innovation and lifelong education policies.

“Can I Work Here?”: Employment Barriers for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities in Greece

Research evidence has shown that employment is crucial and purposeful for people with intellectual disabilities, promoting positive effects associated with independent living and social inclusion. Notwithstanding, people with intellectual disabilities find it particularly difficult to accomplish successful employment. They face discrimination, and they are considered to lack work capacity. The extremely marginal position of people with intellectual disabilities in the labor market appears to prevail across national settings. Over the last 35 years, there has been an improvement in the vocational inclusion of individuals with intellectual disabilities in Greece, with the legislation embracing the human rights-based approach to disability. Nevertheless, the challenge of accomplishing full participation and equality in employment for people with intellectual disabilities still remains huge in Greece. Their participation rates in the Greek labour market are significantly lower than in the rest of the European Union. This article illustrates the employment provisions for individuals with intellectual disabilities in Greece. Additionally, it presents the current implemented models of their occupational inclusion while critically discussing the convention's pursuance on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Greek context.

Determinants of female labour force participation: Evidence from Greece

AbstractThe present study investigates long‐term trends in female participation in the Greek labour market. The analysis presented decomposes the growth in the female participation rate between 1992 and 2020. The dataset used is the Greek Labour Force Survey (GLFS). The model type used is a binary age‐period‐cohort Probit model and a multinomial choice Probit model. A number of assumptions are made to identify the three effects separately. Model I use lagged unemployment as a proxy variable for the period effects and cohort fixed effects – where cohort is a proxy variable for year of birth – together with separate specifications for an interaction term of cohort and region and a linear trend. Model II uses a multinomial Probit model in order to examine whether the decision of a female to enter or not the labour market interacts with the type of work she is choosing, with a number of assumptions again used to identify the three effects separately. The results suggest that the increasing female participation rate is mostly due to cohort effects, when there are also observable age and period effects. Regarding the choice model, results suggest that the period effect has a higher significance on job choice compared with the cohort effect. Age effects are observable and significant in both models.

Civil Society Organizations and Labour Market Integration for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Greece

The 2015 crisis of refugee policies saw an upgrade in the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as service providers for the migrant population in Greece. CSOs attempted to substitute for the government’s failure to provide a migration policy designed for the social integration of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (MRAs). As a result, they have been overseeing a majority of services related to the integration of MRAs in the labour market. This paper aims to enrich the underdeveloped so far discussion on the role of CSOs in the integration of refugees and asylum seekers (RAs) into the Greek labour market. This will be attempted by adopting a qualitative approach. The paper is based on 34 interviews done in 2019, involving refugees, asylum seekers and representatives of third-sector organizations, namely non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and grassroots solidarity initiatives (GSIs) provide various activities that seek to improve the employability of refugees and asylum seekers and help them navigate the employment policies. The article concludes that the lack of a follow-up to the various actions, the fragmented funding schemes and the absence of a clear integration policy from public actors and support from the public administration lie behind the relatively limited role played by CSOs for refugees and asylum seekers in labour market integration.

Social security compliance in times of crisis. Evaluating the factors for non-compliance in the HORECA sectors in Greece

This article studies the impact of the economic recession, labor market deregulation and social security reforms on the level of non-compliance in Greece. It examines the theoretical framework of non-compliance in post-industrial economies, as well as the design of social security systems in preventing contribution evasion. To assess the evolution of non-compliance, especially under conditions of crisis, we examine the results of the INE-GSEE survey on the HORECA sector. According toour research findings, employers follow non-compliant practices in order to maximize their profits, taking advantage of the precariousness of workers, whereas workers accept or collude with non-compliance as a survival tactic within a highly competitive environment. Non-compliance in the Greek labour market appears to be a multi-factor phenomenon that cannot be explained exclusively in terms of a unique perspective.

Crisis, Adjustment and Resilience in the Greek Labor Market: An Unemployment Decomposition Approach

The crisis in Greece led to one of the largest economic shocks in European history. Drawing on micro-data from the Greek Labour Force Survey, we utilize standard micro-econometric methods and non-linear decomposition techniques to measure the size of the shock exerted on the Greek regional and national labor markets and the compositional and price adjustments in response to this. We find elements of economic dynamism, with some sizeable price adjustments in the economy of the Greek capital, Athens; but overall our results show that compositional adjustments (in labor quality/characteristics) have been partial and limited, becoming stronger only in the more recent recovery. Our results suggest a significant metropolitan advantage with regard to economic resilience, coming predominantly from a more efficient functioning of the labor market in metropolitan areas vis-a-vis other regions. Our use of the decomposition techniques for the analysis of macro-level developments in the labor market offers a novel perspective to the application of the decomposition methodology.

Assessing the impact of liberalisation policies on the Greek labour market: an insider–experts' view from the perspective of the varieties of liberalisation

AbstractDuring the recent Great Recession (2008–2018), Greece has become the prototype example of the implementation of austerity policies in Europe. Contrary to public discourse, these austerity policies were complemented by substantial labour market reforms that promoted employment and wage flexibility. This article aims to present a theory‐driven understanding of the implementation and the effects of these reforms. For this purpose, we employ a qualitative study consisting of semi‐structured interviews with 50 labour market experts—government officials and labour lawyers, academics, labour union representatives and employer association representatives. Using Thelen's framework on the Varieties of Liberalization, we conclude that, contrary to the initial aims of the reforms, Greece followed a trajectory of direct deregulation, reducing considerably the level of both coordination between employers and workers, and coverage of employment protection. The interviews show that the dismantling of collective bargaining system was the most decisive move in this path.

Education and wage inequality before and during the fiscal crisis: A quantile regression analysis for Greece 2006–2016

AbstractThe Greek labor market has undergone dramatic changes during the past 10 years. Wage inequality, especially at the bottom end of the earnings distribution, increased sharply. Simultaneously, and despite a massive emigration wave of mainly highly educated employees, the ratio of skilled to unskilled labor has further increased. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between education and the dispersion of male earnings, using Labor Force Survey data, for the years 2006 and 2016. We address both unobserved heterogeneity and potential endogeneity by using an instrumental variables estimator, designed for quantile regression modeling. Our best estimates suggest that the returns to education are higher at lower quantiles in the pre‐crisis period, while the opposite holds true in the post‐crisis period. It is shown that within‐group inequality, mainly among university graduates, has played a major role in these developments. Interestingly, our findings appear to be, in part, driven by changing returns to education across quantiles in the public sector. Increased demand for skilled workers, heterogeneous returns to education across different fields of study, and “ability” are proposed as potential underlying mechanisms.