The Minister of Labor, Niki Kerameos, has announced several changes to the unemployment benefit system. The new system will adjust the monthly unemployment benefit afforded to workers in proportion with the amount they have worked and salary they had received.
Under the current system the monthly benefit is a flat amount of 509 euros for all unemployed workers– for workers who were employed part time or on a seasonal basis, as well as full-time workers. The flat amount is the same regardless of the salary of the worker.
The new system, said Kerameos, will provide a basic allowance and then bonus funds that will depend on the person’s insurance history: “All of us who work pay unemployment contributions. Some are paid by those who work for 5 years and others by those who work for 5 months, other contributions are paid by those who are paid 900 euros and others with 1,400 euros.” The new system is meant to address these disparities such that people are given benefits in proportion with their working history.
Additionally, the benefit will decrease month by month, with the intent, said the minister, to incentivize people to find work more quickly. “We do not want a society that will be based on benefits,” said Kerameos in a radio interview, “We want workers, not unemployed people, so our goal will always be to motivate people to find work.”
Additionally, the access to the unemployment benefit will be changed. Now people will be allocated half of the money on a prepaid card to be used in stores, and only half allocated in cash in a bank account.
The details of how precisely the allowance will be calculated and how it will decrease month by month have not yet been fully ironed out. But the new system is set to be put in place at the start of 2025.
These changes will have a massive impact in a country with high unemployment rates– currently 9.5 percent of Greeks, or 444,402 people are unemployed, which is a drop from previous rates.
