Greek barista Kyriakos Giannichronis has seen the headlines about his country’s newly booming economy after years of recession, but he does not feel the wealth. The Athens resident only has about 150 euros (US$166) to spare at the end of the month, and that is despite getting a good deal on rent and making a little more than minimum wage.
Many Greeks face similar challenges.
“I am responsible enough for what I make, but ... everything is going up and up. And the amount we get paid is around the same each year,” Giannichronis said.
Photo: Reuters
“Things look like they’re getting better, but it doesn’t seem like it,” the 27-year-old said.
Living standards in Greece remain low despite the Mediterranean country’s substantial rebound which has the economy growing at 2 percent — a higher rate than in much of Europe.
The reason for the two sides of the coin is that Greece has significant ground to make up after a near-decade economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic recession.
The Greek economy “is growing and all the right measures are improving, but starting from a very low basis,” economist Nikos Vettas said.
“Even if you have an increase now, this improvement is not enough to catch up,” said Vettas, who heads the Greek economic and industrial research think tank IOBE.
To further complicate matters, housing and food prices had gone up because of inflation, which only now is on its way down.
“The cost of living actually neutralized part of the increase in the wages that we had, and as a result the real incomes of many households are suffering,” Vettas said.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government — which is dipping in the polls — has blamed the high cost of living on soaring energy prices that followed the war in Ukraine.
His New Democracy party is currently polling at about 22 percent, a far cry from the 40.56 percent it won in national elections last year.
Last year, the country of just over 10 million people had the second lowest GDP per capita in purchasing power within the EU.
Only Bulgaria fared worst, according to EU data agency Eurostat.
It also found that average annual income in Greece was half the European average last year.
The Greek minimum wage is 830 euros, about 900 euros below that of France.
“So how are you supposed to live, if you have to rent a house with 500 euros?” Athens hairdresser Christina Massiou asked.
“Life is so expensive that you can’t set aside money for emergencies,” the 24-year-old added.
She and her friend Alexandra Siouti, who works at a public relations agency, spoke from under a palm tree at a beach near Athens.
They had gone to relax and “escape from reality,” Massiou said.
“I have seen the older generations say that things are getting better. For them maybe,” Siouti, also 24, said. “But younger people don’t have many opportunities here to start their life and invest in their dreams.”
Last month, the Greek Ministry of National Economy and Finance said household net disposable income had risen in recent years, putting Greece in 16th place in the EU.
The data confirmed the “significant progress our country has achieved in the last five years,” the ministry said in a statement.
However, the ministry acknowledged that it was not cause for celebration or a reason to “underestimate the real difficulties that many of our fellow citizens face.”
“It is obvious that Greece has not turned into Switzerland or Sweden,” it said.
Vettas said that some sectors have fared better than others.
“We have witnessed in the last three or four years a sharp increase in the salaries of professions where they have some specialty, some expertise,” he said.
“Either at the upper end or the lower end,” Vettas added, giving the examples of computer scientists and construction workers.
However, for those employed in a sector like hospitality — a big industry in Greece — “it’s not easy to see how you’re going to improve their position,” Vettas said.
Giannichronis said he was trying to remain calm about the economic situation, despite having to think about money all the time.
“I’m not furious because it wouldn’t do me any good. Things are the way they are. We can’t change much,” he said.
What he can control is how to budget his own expenses and help his friends better manage theirs, he added.
“But if I was angry about it too, then I would start to lose myself and go crazy on the streets shouting... And I don’t want that,” he said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his