Since the beginning of Greece’s economic crisis in 2010, when then-prime minister George Papandreou asked for international bailouts after promising he wouldn’t, more than 40,000 civil servants have retired, with the government payroll falling by 4.8 billion euros ($6.21 billion) from 2009-12, according to figures provided by Alternate Finance Minister Christos Staikouras to Parliament, nearly half of that offset with higher pension benefits being paid out.
In 2009, Greece had 406,271 retired servants. As of April this year, the figure stood at 449,341, Staikouras said. The outlay on civil service pensions has increased from 4.2 billion euros ($5.43 billion) in 2005 to just over 6.5 billion euros ($8.41 billion) last year. The numbers will grow as it can take a year or longer after workers retire before they begin being paid.
The Finance Ministry also said on May 27 that civil servants’ salary expenses had risen from 13.9 billion euros ($18 billion) in 2005 to 18.5 billion euros ($23.95 billion) in 2009 but had fallen again to 13.7 billion euros ($17.77 billion) last year.
Counting state run enterprises, Greece had about one million workers on the public payroll in a country of about 11 million people. The New Democracy Conservatives and rival PASOK Socialists have been blamed for creating the country’s crushing economic crisis by hiring hundreds of thousands of needless workers for generations in return for votes.
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