eKathimerini — The start of the tourism season in April and the fact that the Easter holiday landed at the end of that month appear to have boosted employment in Greece, as the Labour Ministry’s Ergani hirings database recorded an increase of 90,631 salaried jobs over the month, according to the balance between hirings and departures. A year earlier the balance had been positive by 80,223 jobs, with the increase attributed to the 28,697 additional hirings last month compared with April 2015.
April is typically a month of growth for employment, but April 2016 has seen the biggest recorded increase since 2001. Hiring announcements numbered 215,176, while departures reached 124,545. Almost a third of hirings (32.2 percent) concerned part-time employment.
In the first four months of the year hiring announcements amounted to 593,052, and departures reached 468,587. Therefore the balance of salaried employment in the January-April 2016 period was positive, with the creation of 124,465 new jobs, which also represents the biggest increase in the first four months of the year since 2001.
However, it is worth noting that out of the 593,052 hirings made in the year to end-April, more than half (i.e. 301,911 jobs or 50.91 percent) concerned part-time or rotational employment, Ergani data revealed.
