Survey: Unemployment and “work poverty” threaten young Greeks

Young people aged 18-24 are at significant risk – in relation to other social and age groups – from poverty and social exclusion. This element – combined with the high youth unemployment (36.8% last April) – demonstrate the biggest problem of our country’s youth.

According to the recent report of the workers confederation-GSEE’s Labor Institute, young people aged 18-24 in Greece are also at great risk of working poverty. In the two years 2019-2020, 15% of young people aged 18-24 in Greece faced the risk of poverty at work compared to 12.1% in the European Union.

The indicator depicting the at-risk-of-poverty rate captures the proportion of employed people who have an equivalent disposable income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. In other words, workers who do not meet their needs.

Out of work and education

At the same time in Greece, the percentage of young people aged 18-24 who do not work but do not participate in any education or training program is quite high.

Until 2010 there was a relative convergence of the percentages between Greece and the EU, in the following years the percentage of young people who were out of work, education and training increased significantly in Greece. Indicatively, in the period 2013-2017 in Greece the percentage was 24.3% while in the EU 15.9%.

In recent years there has been a relative improvement in Greece if we exclude 2020 where due to the pandemic crisis the rate increased to 19.3%. In 2021, the percentage of young people without work, education and training in Greece decreased to 16.7%, while the corresponding percentage in the EU was 13.7%.