Greece’s new DYPA job subsidy will pay private employers to create 27,494 full-time jobs for unemployed people aged 30 and over, with applications opening early in the week.
According to the program’s terms, the Public Employment Service (DYPA) will cover part of each worker’s costs for 12 months. Its budget totals €279.6 million, and it covers all of Greece.
The DYPA job subsidy targets people who still struggle to find work. In particular, it focuses on unemployed women aged 30 and over and unemployed men aged 50 and over.
“We are leaving behind the horizontal policies of the past,” DYPA governor Gianna Chormova said.
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How much the DYPA job subsidy pays
The program sets a unit cost of €1,313 a month per job. For women 30 and over and men 50 and over, DYPA covers 75 per cent, or €984.75 a month.
By comparison, unemployed men aged 30 to 49 attract a 50 per cent subsidy, or €656.50 a month.
The funding covers gross monthly pay and employer social security contributions. It also covers the Christmas and Easter bonuses and the holiday allowance.
Private businesses and employers with regular economic activity anywhere in Greece can take part. However, they must not have cut staff in the last calendar quarter before they finalise their funding application.
Money for the DYPA job subsidy comes from the Greek state and the European Social Fund Plus. It flows through the Human Resources and Social Cohesion 2021–2027 program.
A shift in strategy
Chormova said the DYPA job subsidy puts a “new, steady strategy” into practice. That strategy backs initiatives “fully targeted at the real needs of citizens and the economy”, she said.
DYPA now focuses “methodically and with increased incentives” on the groups facing the greatest difficulty in the labour market, she said. Specifically, those groups include women and people over 50.
Finally, she said DYPA is already designing the next programs to follow.
About two in three people on the jobless register are women, Greek City Times reported in October. Still, unemployment in Greece has fallen sharply since the debt crisis. In September, the labour minister said the employment rate had reached a record 72.2 per cent.
Source: ERT News
