A pilot program to transfer unemployed laborers to areas they are needed during winter will be introduced by DYPA, the Greek employment agency, Labor and Social Insurance Minister Adonis Georgiadis said in an interview on Open TV on Monday.
As he explained it, "We have a great shortage of workers in the primary sector on Crete - they cannot find laborers - while we have regions in Greece that register very high unemployment, such as western Macedonia. Thus, we shall set up a pilot program for (produce) collection in October-November on Crete, and DYPA will cover the cost of travel and housing for laborers from western Macedonia."
Georgiadis added, "We will then see if this works out, if in other words we can transport workers from an area with high unemployment to another with high labor demand, for a limited time and with subsidies. If the system works, we will then expand it to the entire country."
Asked what about labor that is underreported or uninsured, he asserted that checks have reduced unregistered work "to a great degree", since such employers are fined with 10,500 euros per laborer. "Our greatest issue now is not working under the table and without insurance, but underreporting" of the actual hours employers use workers, he said.
Asked to comment about outstanding supplementary (epikourikes) pensions yet to be processed by social insurance funds, the labor minister said that they total nearly 45,000. "My goal is to have halved them by the end of the year, that is, to 25,000," he said, adding that he is optimistic that target will be met.
AMNA
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