P. Tsakloglou: 75,000 retirees are returning to work

For maternity benefit, employment pensionersbut also the six-day work, spoke the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, Panos Tsakloglou, in an interview with Real FM 97.8.

Specifically, Mr. Tsakloglou noted that the main purpose of the government and the Ministry of Labor is to help young couples, who want to have children, to have the desired number of children, reconciling family and professional life. As he said, in this direction is being paid maternity allowance to freelancers, self-employed and female farmers, for nine months, which is equal to the minimum wage, i.e. 830 euros.

“In the previous term, we extended the duration of the allowance to private sector tenants from six months to nine months. In addition, we took a series of measures, such as the maternity allowance, the increase of places in daycare centers and kindergartens, the expansion of the full-day school, the “Neighborhood Babysitters”, but also the housing policy, which we brought back, to support in particular the new couples” said the Deputy Minister of Labor.

To a question about the employment of pensioners, Mr. Tsakloglou answered the following: “Although we are a country in which unemployment is still at high levels, although it has decreased spectacularly in recent years, there is a narrowness in the labor market. At the same time, we see that a large number of pensioners would like to work. What used to apply was that, if a pensioner wanted to work, he essentially lost 30% of his pension (60% with the Katrougalou law). With the latest legislative change, the pension of working pensioners is paid without deduction and 10% is withheld from the income from employment.

“It is known that of the 36,000 working pensioners we had before the law change, almost 75,000 have already registered on the platform. This is a measure that helps pensioners to improve their income, but also their future pension”, added the deputy minister.

For six days work, the Deputy Minister of Labor clarified the following: “There are two cases. The employer in continuous operations can ask the employee to work an extra day, but the pay is 40% more, as it is counted as overtime. It can also be applied to other businesses, which are not in continuous operation, but may have some extra needs in a certain period.” However, as Mr. Tsakloglou clarified, it does not concern hotels and restaurants.

With information from APE