Greek employment balance hits historic record in March and Q1 2023

The best performance historically was recorded by the employment balance both in March 2023 and during the January-March quarter, according to the data of the “ERGANI” Information System of the labor ministry.

More specifically, in March hiring announcements reached 250,239, while resignations reached 188,327 (102,377 terminations of open-ended contracts or expiration of fixed-term contracts and 85,950 voluntary departures). Thus, March’s employment balance flows was positive by 61,912 jobs, the best performance since 2001 for which data are available.

“We achieved a historical record in the employment balance in the first quarter of 2023. That is, hirings were far more than dismissals, than at any other time. This is the best answer to #SYRIZA’s catastrophizing about the economy. Reality is taking its revenge on them!”, Labor Minister Kostis Hatzidakis wrote in a tweet.

The data

In the January-March quarter, job announcements reached 619,788 and departures reached 562,301 (332,062 terminations of open-ended contracts or terminations of fixed-term contracts and 230,239 voluntary departures). Thus, the balance of first-quarter wage employment flows was positive by 57,487 jobs, also the highest level since 2001.

The industries with the best hiring/departure balance are: accommodation (+24,150), catering/food service (+5,630), education (+4,716), retail (+2,993), public administration/defence/social security (+2,730). Creative activities (-151), post/courier (-150), broadcasting (-82), financial (-39) and insurance (-35) sectors had negative performances.

The balance of salaried employment flows of the first quarter of the year 2023 is positive and is formed at 57,487 new jobs, constituting the highest performance of the first quarter of the year from 2001 to date.

It is worth noting that, along with the electronic submissions of recruitment-dismissal forms through the “ERGANI” Information System, there is also a particularly small percentage of businesses that were forced to manually submit forms to the regional offices of Public Employment Agency-DYPA, either due to cases of late submissions, which are imposed and the prescribed fines, or special minimal cases of businesses that are unable to submit the data electronically. The balance of salaried employment flows for these specific categories of businesses for the period from 01.03.2023 to 31.03.2023, according to DYPA data, is -216 job losses.