Back in October, ITM highlighted a number of Greek news channels referring to a London School of Economics study that identified a fundamental change in the Greek economy, over the past decade or so – a so-called new “Era of the Café Economy” based on hospitality, accommodation and low-cost services. Indeed, more than half of the 523 new businesses created in Messinia in the past year (a record in itself) are in the hospitality sector – reinforcing the findings of the study. The research showed that the cause was not only harsh austerity policies but also the false assumption of “Structural Reforms”: changes in the markets and products, instead of enhancing innovation and innovation efficiency, led to deregulation, cheap labour and concentration of activity only in low value-added sectors.

To summarise: We work more, but we produce less. And worst of all, we are paid even less and that in Kalamata young people and educated workers work in positions that do not meet the levels of their qualifications- they are overqualified.

And yet the national news outlet Ekathimerini recently seemed to slightly contradict this last point. In referring to an internal report made by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), they quote on “the considerable mismatch between the skills of the workforce and the jobs on offer in this country”, stressing that Greece belongs to the group of economies where posts with specific skills account for over 70% of all vacancies. However, few job seekers express interest in job ads that refer to specific specifications – only 5%.” That finding confirms the research that documents the difficulty of finding personnel for companies operating in the Greek economy. One of them, ManpowerGroup, has shown that 80% of employers are having difficulty filling vacancies. The same indicator carried out by the National Documentation Center, the Hellenic Statistical Authority and the Panhellenic Exporters Association put the figure at 76%; it attributed the reduced interest of candidates to the lack of appropriate skills to fill the positions.

Ekathimerini partly attributes this huge gulf between skills required by employers and skills available in the labour market to the “brain drain” during the austerity years and the need for the labour market to adapt to the influence of AI.

The situation depicted in both reports throws up challenging questions for the Greek economy. Are those currently overqualified to be employed in low paid, unskilled work simply trained in the wrong skills? If so, does higher education need to drastically change? Can incentives be introduced to encourage the return of skilled workers who left a decade ago and have the required qualifications and finally, is the economy trying to change too quickly? To the fairly untrained observer, it seems, unfortunately there is no quick fix and the “café economy” may well continue to dominate.

What do you think?