"Good morning! Although it is the first weekend of July and I know that many of you are already or are preparing to go to the beach, I remain faithful to our weekly "appointment" and I will start immediately with the topics of today's review!" Kyriakos Mitsotakis says this in his first words in his post with the weekly review of the government's work.
Initially, the Prime Minister refers to the National Health System.
"The upgrading of the NHS is one of our major priorities; we support and strengthen it in every way, not only in terms of infrastructure but also in terms of human resources. So on Thursday, two important government decisions were signed. The first enables doctors in the NHS to be able to provide private work after they have completed their prescribed weekly working hours. What do we want to achieve with this? To address the leakage we have in critical specialties to the private sector. The policy of increases that we are already implementing in the salaries and allowances of health staff at the limit of our budgetary capacity is working, but it is not enough, as a private doctor can currently secure much higher incomes. At the same time, we are also enabling private doctors to be able to provide work in the NHS, if they wish, in order to cover the existing shortages. And just to give you an idea of what has happened in terms of staffing the NHS over the last five years, in June 2019 there were 78,272 doctors and nurses serving, and by June 2024 there were 86,138, an increase of 10%.
The second decision concerns the new form of incentives to fill the gaps in doctors in the remote islands of Greece, the so-called "barren line" and mountainous areas. I will just cite the example of Kos: there have been 11 advertisements for 4 GP posts in the island's hospital without any interest, even though there are many private GPs there. What are these new incentives? The net monthly allowance for arid areas is tripled, and an additional allowance for specific specialties in these areas is being introduced. In the event of travel to meet needs, they will be paid an additional EUR 2100 on top of their salary and will be able to have free accommodation at the expense of each municipality. Therefore, combined with the possibility of carrying out private work on the island, an attractive package of incentives is created to staff hospitals in remote areas."
Mitsotakis then spoke about education issues and the recruitment of teachers.
"I turn to another priority of our government, the strengthening of public education. In previous years, we made a significant investment in human resources, which we are continuing. I recall that by last year, for the first time since the crisis, 28,300 permanent teachers had been recruited for the first time since the crisis period. So for the next school year, we announced 10,000 permanent appointments in all specialties, the highest number of permanent appointments in recent years. Of the 10,000 posts, about half (4,451) are replacements for teachers who have retired under the one-hire-one-retire rule, while the remaining appointments (5,549) are to fill vacancies that were previously filled by substitutes. Our goal is to reduce the number of substitute teachers by at least 50%, filling the vacancies in our schools in a permanent way, so that we can offer our children the best possible quality of public education and teachers a stable working environment where they can develop and carry out their profession without hindrance.
The Prime Minister also takes a stand on employment and unemployment reduction policies.
"On Thursday I visited the Ministry of Labour, where really over the last five years a very good job has been done, which is reflected in the indicators: unemployment has been reduced (I will refer to this below), thousands of new jobs have been created, and the working environment has improved. And this is exactly what the Digital Job Card contributes to: a better working environment where labour rights and incomes are protected, punishing employer arbitrariness where it exists. That is why we remain committed to its implementation in all sectors of the economy. I should mention here that in those sectors where it has been implemented, the data in Ergani show an increase in declared overtime and, by extension, in workers' incomes.
As I said before, the work done in the Ministry of Labour is also reflected in the reduction of unemployment, where our country also recorded a very good performance in the first quarter of this year. We are first among OECD countries in the rate of job growth in the 15–64 age group and also first in terms of the growth of female employment. In terms of young people and women, I know that we are still lagging significantly behind the rest of Europe. That is why we are already planning measures to achieve even greater labour market participation for them, and the same applies to the participation of pensioners and people with disabilities.
