2024-04-29 08:29:00
He referred to the government’s two objectives in relation to the maternity allowance the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, Panos Tsakloglou, speaking on ERT-First Program radio. And he explained: “The first is the reconciliation of family and professional life and the second is helping young couples to have the number of children they want.”
Mr. Tsakloglou noted that “during the previous 4 years we extended from 6 to 9 months thematernity allowance for private sector tenants. With the latest bill of the Ministry of Labor, we provide for 9 months to the self-employed, freelancers and farmers an allowance equal to the minimum wage, i.e. 830 euros”. He added: “Along with the allowance, we also took other measures to strengthen the family such as the maternity allowance, increasing the number of available places in nurseries and daycare centers, “neighborhood nannies” and the housing policy with an emphasis on young people” .
Pensioner employment platform
With reference to the retiree employment platform, Mr. Tsaklogou underlined that “until recently, if a retiree worked, he had a 30% cut in his pension. In fact, under Katrougalos this percentage was 60%. Recently, we changed this regime and a working pensioner will normally receive his pension in full and there will be a 10% cut in the salary he receives.
At the same time, he stated that “the working pensioners under the previous regime were approximately 36,000 and already on the platform they have stated that they wish to employ around 75,000 people and this number continues to increase”.
Pension with debts
The Deputy Minister then referred to pension with debts, emphasizing that “with the latest bill of the Ministry of Labor, we extended the right of people who have debts to the EFKA, so that they can receive a regular pension. Under the previous regime, someone could get a pension if their debts to EFKA were up to 20,000 euros and up to 6,000 euros if they were a farmer. We changed these limits from 20,000 to 30,000 euros and from 6,000 to 10,000 euros provided that the insured has at least paid contributions for at least 20 years and, in addition, their bank deposits do not exceed 12,000 euros, so that only they are helped who really have an inability to pay”.
And he added: “The relevant platform for submitting applications will be ready within two months. 60% of the pension will be withheld until the debt falls to 20,000 euros and from then on the current rules will apply.”
Six days work
In addition, he clarified regarding the six-day work that “it concerns either businesses that are in continuous operation, or businesses where there is an unexpected increase in needs for a short period of time. Six-day work is considered overtime and has a 40% pay increase. The regulation does not concern hotels and restaurants.”
For TEKA
Finally, regarding TEKA, he noted that “our pension is distributive, that is, theoretically, the contributions of current employees pay the pensions of current retirees. These systems work seamlessly when we have many workers and few retirees. In Greece at the moment only 1.7 workers correspond to one pensioner”. And he added that “already in the 80s, most countries began to strengthen existing or create new capitalization systems – which are not subject to the demographic risk – next to the distribution systems. In Greece, this was done for the first time with TEKA before three years. An individual account is created for each insured person in which the supplementary insurance contributions are deposited, invested and, when the moment of retirement arrives, the insured person will receive a pension corresponding to his contributions and the returns on his investments. In addition to the diversification of the insurance risk, based on the experience of countries with mature capitalization systems, TEKA insured persons can expect supplementary pensions considerably higher than those of the existing distribution system of supplementary insurance”.