Yiannis Vroutsis

The raises and retroactive payments due to recipients of main and auxiliary pensions will be paid out in June. They will be be based on the changes included in the Labor Ministry's draft law, as all 2.8 million main pensions will need to be recalculated after it is passed.

Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis said Monday that a new bill on social insurance which will soon be tabled in Parliament will rectify injustices inflicted upon the country's pensioners.
The new legislation, Vroutsis said, will ensure that retired farmers will be able to continue their professional activities without any cuts to their pensions.

The final version of the Labor Ministry bill on the new replacement rates for pensioners will lead to an increase in main pensions by 12 to 252 euros per month, Kathimerini understands.

The final version of the Labor Ministry bill on the new replacement rates for pensioners will lead to an increase in main pensions by 12 to 252 euros per month, Kathimerini understands.

The Greek brain drain has been a hot topic of discussion over the past few years, most recently as a result of Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis' announcement of a pilot program for luring back 500 Greek scientists and experts by subsidizing 70 percent of their salaries for a period of one year.

The Labor Ministry's pilot program titled "Greece Again" and described at its launch as an "emblematic initiative" hopes to convince some 500 highly qualified Greek professionals aged 28-40 who are currently working abroad to come back home. How? By promising a minimum gross salary of 3,000 euros a month.

As part of its goal to ease the burden on businesses and to increase disposable incomes, the government has made the final tweaks to its four-year plan to gradually reduce wage contributions.

The plan has been incorporated into the social security bill which will be ratified in Parliament in January and is expected to take effect in July.

Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis has rebuffed a Reuters report that Greece plans to sell billions of euros of social security contributions owed to its EFKA pension fund to private investors to get cash upfront and facilitate recovering other receivables.
"There are no plans to sell 12 billion euros of legacy arrears, Vroutsis said in a statement issued Thursday.

Greece's high structural unemployment, the huge degree to which employment depends on tourism, and entrapment in seasonal jobs in economic activities of low specialization ensure that the economy remains vulnerable and lead to high numbers of layoffs at the end of every tourism season.

More than 310,000 pension applications to the main pension fund (EFKA) and the auxiliary pension fund (ETEAEP) remain pending, while the total number of outstanding cases regarding pension issues adds up to over 1 million, Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis said on Tuesday.