By S. Papapetros
Liberalization of the regime affecting mass layoffs in Greece remains the primary "stumbling block" in an agreement between creditors and Athens to conclude the second review of the Greek program (third bailout), at least in terms of the labor sector front.
Creditors, namely, the "quartet" comprised by the Commission, ECB, SSM and IMF, want an increase in the ceiling for monthly redundancies to 10 percent of a business' workforce, up from the current 5 percent ceiling -- a provision that affects companies with more than 150 employees on a payroll. The second standing demand by creditors, especially the IMF, is to abolish the right of the relevant labor minister to veto a company's decision to proceed with mass layoffs -- even when the restructuring of a troubled business is at stake.
According to official figures from a recent inventory of Greek corporate entities in 2015, 523 businesses fielded a workforce of 250 or more employees, with the total number of employees in this category standing at more than 447,000 wage-earners -- or 26.72 percent of the workforce in the private sector.
Additionally, 3,089 businesses employed between 50 to 249 employees -- 307,551 in total. As such businesses with more than 150 wage-earners on the payroll employed half a million people.
