Facing a bleak Christmas and holiday period as workers await more pay cuts and tax hikes, Greek retailers will be allowed to open on two Sundays – Dec. 23 and Dec. 30 – and next year will have four more Sundays added in a bid to keep more businesses from failing in the country’s crushing economic crisis. Besides Christmas, Jan. 1 is a big gift-giving day in Greece.
Most stores in Greece are barred from being open in Greece, a long-standing taboo that is set to be broken because austerity measures imposed by the government on the order of international lenders has made many Greeks slow spending almost to a standstill, except for necessities.
With 68,000 businesses shutting down in the last 2 ½ years, the Development Ministry said it is looking at a plan that would allow retail stores to open six Sundays a year.
Thousands more stores are expected to close in the wake of a new $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike bill that will further cut into purchasing power as many Greeks have little or no disposable income apart from necessities.
Technically, Greece only allows two sales period a year, one in the winter and another in August, the only times stores are supposedly allowed to offer sales prices, but that has been widely flouted as desperate storeowners are offering huge discounts now. Deputy Development Minister Thanassis Skordas said that for this month stores will be allowed to open on two Sundays, Dec. 23 and Dec. 30 compared to just one last year ahead of Christmas.
The newspaper Kathimerini reported that besides the two Sundays in December, a practice that will continue, there will also be one Sunday opening for each of the two sales periods that will also be extended and allowed to run longer. There will also be two additional sales periods, with one Sunday opening for each, in November and May to go along with those in January-February and July-August.
Valia Aranitou, Director of the Labour Institute at the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE) said many more stores will close because of the crisis and tax hikes they could not afford with dwindling sales.
The organization expects its members will suffer a 53 percent drop in sales this year and that Christmas will be a bleak period as this is the last time workers will receive already-drastically reduced Christmas bonuses. There are fears in the retail industry that this will be the last Christmas for many stores.
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