Greece: Minimum monthly wage scale increased; 9.7% hike since Jan.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday, as widely expected, announced an increase in the minimum monthly wage for full-time employment in the country, effective on May 1, and binding for all employers.

As such, the current full-time minimum monthly wage increases from 663 euros to 713 euros.

Mitsotakis said the hike, along with a previous uptick in January, means a total increase of 9.7 percent this year, compared to the same wage scale in 2021.

The pro-business and reform-minded Mitsotakis, as well as his center-right government, has faced rising discontent over unprecedented – by Eurozone standards – inflation over the past few months and skyrocketing energy costs – a phenomenon charted in late 2021 but exasperated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.

The increase will affect roughly 650,000 wage-earners in the country of approximately 11 million, and equals roughly another month’s worth of pay.

Mitsotakis also noted that this decision, which was taken “in a spirit of responsibility and solidarity” towards wage-earners, is a decision aimed to protect social cohesion and to prevent setbacks in achieved progress so far.

The Greek premier said a recurring theme during his contacts around the country with young wage-earners earning the minimum salary is the pressure they face to make ends meet.

“The common anxiety I see in people’s faces is the high cost of living due to the global energy crisis and the war in Ukraine; (high) electricity rates, at the supermarket shelf and at the gas pump,” he said.

In announcing the hike in a televised address, Mitsotakis conceded that “wages are still very low in our country … as the wounds of the 10-year economic crisis have yet to heal, while the global surge in inflation rates is hitting the lower-paid and the unemployed first.”

At the same time, he reminded that since July 2019, when ND assumed the country’s reins, “the unemployment rate has been sliced by five percentage points, despite the successive crises that have occurred during that time.”