Yiannis Vroutsis

The first payments of a special handout of 800 euros for workers hit by the coronavirus crisis will be made after April 10. The emergency stipend concerns people who are out of work either because their employers were forced to shut down their business by the government or because their contracts have been suspended by enterprises hurt by the pandemic.

The government hopes to deposit an emergency stipend of 800 euros for workers at businesses that have suspended their employment contracts as a result of coronavirus lockdown measures by April 10, which also marks the new extended deadline for applications on the Ergani database.

A comprehensive package of measures to protect the economy from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic is to be unveiled on Monday by Finance Minister Christos Staikouras, Development and Investments Minister Adonis Georgiadis and Labor and Social Affairs Minister Yiannis Vroutsis. 

The government on Wednesday announced a 3.8-billion-euro package of measures to soften the blow to the economy from the coronavirus epidemic. The package aims to support workers, the self-employed and enterprises, as the first mass layoffs have already been recorded and the risk of a painful recession is looming large.

Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis spoke on Thursday of encouraging signs in the labor market as he announced the February data from the ministry's Ergani hirings database.

Members of the anti-establishment group Rouvikonas (Greek for Rubicon) on Thursday barged into the office of Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis in the center of Athens shouting slogans and scattering fliers.
In a post on the anarchist Indymedia website, the group said the stunt was carried out in protest at the the government's new social security bill.

Describing the new social security bill that was passed on Thursday in Parliament with 158 votes in favor and 128 against, Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis said it marks a "very important step forward" that safeguards pensions for the next 50 years.

Greek lawmakers started debating on Tuesday evening a social security bill, which Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis describing it as a "watershed" law that will affect current and future generations. 

Earlier, the minister tabled an accompanying actuarial report which he said "proves the [draft] law's viability until 2070."

The increases planned for main and auxiliary pensions amount to additional public spending of 0.22 percent of gross domestic product, or 434 million euros, for 2020, but expenditure on pensions as a share of GDP is reduced from 14.8 percent to 14.6 percent this year, mainly thanks to the abolition of the pre-election handout of last spring, branded then the "13th pension."

The increase in hirings of private sector salary workers has started to slow, generating fears of a reversal of the rise in employment.