GSEE: Major Greek Income Decline

Data shows that approximately a million jobs have already been lost, while, it rang an alarm bell for a new rise in unemployment, but also regarding the sustainability of social security funds.

Specifically, the survey foresees a long period of stagnation for the Greek economy with high unemployment and deficits in the new Insurance plan steadily on the rise from 2016 onwards. According to estimates, the insurance funds of Greece will need an additional 950 million euros, as after the five-year old crisis, more than 45 billion euros have been lost along with one million job positions.

The report talks about the gradual collapse of the reserves of the insurance system (SKA), using 2016 as a base-year, and predicts that in the year 2044, the problem will reach its peak, based on the current trend in the proportion of births /deaths-where it is expected that the natural evolution of the Greek population will stop.

The director of the Labor Confederation Union Research Institute, INE-GSEE, Savas Robolis stressed that if he policy currently implemented by the government is not changed, it will remain problematic, even if pensions are totally abolished. "Even if we eliminate pensions, the system will remain in deficit, if a series of measures, such as stopping the austerity, wage growth, boosting domestic demand and reducing the prices of products are not taken. The turn of Greek enterprises in services and foreign demand and ultimately in improving their structural competitiveness by investing in technological and productive reconstruction is necessary.”

The director also added that it is necessary to create a new framework for the financing of the pension system by finding new sources outside the state budget.  The Social Security System should, except for contributions and state funding to find additional resources of 950 million by 2016, 1.4 billion by 2017 and 2.5 billion by 2018.