Civil servants pensions 3 times higher
The Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEV) wants the Minister of Finance to call an urgent meeting of all interested parties to deal with the worsening economy and find ways to spur development.
OEV chairman Andreas Pittas said that the government’s development plan had only reached half of the implementation target and that other ways were need to contain public sector spending, such as a freeze on all civil servants’ pay for the next three years, to pull the plug on all new hiring for the next five years and reduce the entry-level wages by 25%.
“Hiring 1200 people last year was a big mistake and is costing the state about 50 mln euros,” Dr Pittas said, noting that there was nothing worse than enlarging the public payroll at a time of a crisis.
To quantify his argument, the OEV chairman said that civil service grew from 33,978 in 1990 to 51,787 at present, with a payroll rising from EUR 372 mln to 2.02 bln.
He urged the government to farm out work to the private sector in order to stimulate the economy and the stagnant labour market, where unemployment has doubled from 11,000 a year ago to 22,000 today.
Pittas said that all OEV members are being urged to maintain a zero-increase policy during the negotiations for the new collective labour agreements.
He said that some of the weaknesses of the economy stem from the generous pay given to civil servants and their pensions, with the average monthly pay for 16,000 retired public sector workers averaging 1,692, while the average for the 69,000 private sector workers is at a third, 574 euros.
The cost of pensions to civil servants has risen tenfold, from EUR 47.4 mln in 1990 to 503.2 mln at present. This has drained the Social Insurance Fund as civil servants also contribute half of what private sector employees do.
However, Dr Pittas had a lot of constructive suggestions to help revive the economy, such as transforming all semi government organisations to state-owned companies, leading to the privatisation of many of these that will also increase competition.
He added that government inefficiency and productivity can be improved and more services should be offered on-line, while the incentives for young and women entrepreneurs was not wel supported by the state, which has so far offered EUR 1.8 mln to start-ups, while it could offer up to EUR 20 mln more that would effectively help ease the level of unemployment by creating at least 1,000 new jobs.
Pittas said that OEV, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, has already planned several events, such as a tourism forum in cooperation with the hotel owners STEK and a special ceremony on January 28 to honour philanthropist and art collector Demetris Pierides.
