“Our goal is to lower unemployment below 10 pct in 2024”

Athens.- Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Sunday participated in a discussion held during the 14th “Career Days” event organised by the Public Employment Service (DYPA) at the Helexpo conference centre in Maroussi, Athens.
The prime minister spoke with representatives of the companies Poseidon Marine Supplies, Vasia Hotels & Resorts and THRAKON-YTONG who have hired staff with DYPA’s help, and with three employees placed in this way. Participants in the panel discussion stressed the importance of “Career Days” and DYPA’s active intermediary role in linking up companies and employees.
“The ‘Career Days’ have succeeded in bringing businesses and workers together so that this ‘marriage’ can finally take place and jobs are created. I think that you and the stories we are hearing are the best living promotion that the institution works…” Mitsotakis said, adding that the employment service was now of a European standard.
The prime minister said that the work done at the labour ministry and DYPA for the job market ranked highly in his personal hierarchy of the government’s successes:
“There are a great many subsidised job positions that are going to be announced over the next period, nearly 200,000, with significant financing from the Recovery Fund and from the new NSRF. Our goal is to lower unemployment to below 10 pct some time in 2024. I consider that this is a target that is absolutely feasible and DYPA has, I think, a signficant role to play in this effort. And I believe that the next big front we shall have to deal with in the labour market concerns two aspects: The first is how to cover the needs in rapidly growing sectors, such as tourism, where we see there is a big problem finding staff. And this, possibly, has to do with the second great challenge, which is the retraining and acquisition of additional skills in a job market that is constantly changing,” the prime minister said.
“If we are talking about policies with a truly progressive [impact], these are the policies that finally created jobs – and we have created more than 250,000 – and, of course, the next great challenge is not just jobs but also wages. I think that is something that is already happening in the private sector. It is important for companies to adjust their wages. As long as businesses are doing well, it is a given that a dividend of growth must be passed on to the workers. We have seen a significant increase of average incomes, of average salaries, in the private sector, it will become even greater,” the prime minister concluded.