With a record unemployment rate of 27.6 percent and 1.4 million people out of work, some Greek companies nonetheless are beginning to believe that they won’t have to keep firing people during a crushing economic crisis.
A survey by Manpower found that only 16 percent of employers expect to reduce their worker numbers in the last quarter of the year. The majority of the 751 respondents – 69 percent – said they don’t expect to make any changes to their staff numbers, while 12 percent said they expect to hire people. This is the most optimistic result in such a survey since the second quarter of 2010.
While some analysts expecting the unemployment rate to hit as high as 31 percent, and with the government set to fire thousands of public workers, businesses in Attica say they expect a 3 percent growth in hiring, although those in northern Greece expect a 7 percent fall, which would continue the string of job losses for 14 consecutive quarters.
It is anticipated that six out of nine financial sectors will show an employment contraction, with tourism dropping by 6 percent after a record-busting year that put critical cash into the economy, while the sector of financial, insurance, real estate and corporate services is set to show a 4 percent increase in the final quarter of the year.
A reduction of between 4 and 5 percent is expected in manufacturing and in electrical production, natural gas and water so the optimism in many cases isn’t being matched by the grim numbers, especially as there are expectations in some quarters that the government will have to impose yet more austerity measures.
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