Man, if I still lived in an EU country and the government pulled this shit I’d be making the most of that sweet freedom-of-movement. Way to drive all the skills out of your economy.
That’s exactly what tens if not hundreds of thousands of young Greeks have done in the last 15 years.
Greece has a brain drain problem. This ridiculous measure is actually sold by the government as an attempt to address the shortage of certain skilled worker categories. By … incentivizing the few that are left to pack up and leave. In practice, it’s just class warfare.
The Greek ruling class is a bunch of grifters, landlords, smugglers and gangsters (always have been, since 1830) and they are basically betting on a “recovery” based on cheap labour.
Legitimate question: aren’t there barriers / hurdles to permanent residency still?
A good example of how this is not the case is the UK and Dentists. When Brexit hit and they left the EU (picture if the right in the US had their immigration way), a ton of immigrant Dentists had to leave. It was easy to stay before because of the EU. Now there is a huge shortage of dentists. Surprise surprise.
The barriers are your skills and language. Other than that, no.
Edit: some people move without permanent residency anyway. It has its’ drawbacks.
Got it, that’s all I meant. I thought there were requirements, it’s not just “pack our bags, we’re moving to Germany tomorrow”
If you can afford it, yes you can do this. You are allowed to live and work anywhere in the EU.
But if you also need a job to feed you, its more difficult if you do not speak the local language and have not learned something useful.
But from the residency law you absolutely can pack your bag and move to Germany tomorrow as an EU citizen.
I’ve literally done that inside the EU, though to the UK (back before Brexit) rather than Germany - I flew to London and stayed about a month in a hotel whilst looking for a contract there (I’m a freelancer) and more permanent accommodation.
Years later I did the same to Germany, though I only stayed 3 months.
The only requirement is that you either have a job or have the money to pay for the costs of living there (so you can still go without a job, as long as you have the money to pay for a place to stay, food and so on). The reason for the requirement that you can pay your way (either from a job or savings) is because people can’t just move to another EU country to do things like living on the street and begging or living of the local Social Security.
Some countries also have a requirement that you register after 3 months there (for example, Germany), though it’s not any kind of applying to stay, it’s simply registering as living there. This is usually because there are associated obligations for residents in that country, not just in terms were do you pay tax, but in some countries (for example, Germany and The Netherlands) there are things like mandatory health insurance.
In practice as an EU citizen, if you have the savings or the kind of job which you can do in 3 month stints or remotely, you absolutely can hop from country to country every 3 months without having to register with anybody (though I’m not sure how taxes would work - I suppose you would pay them in the last country you registered as a Resident).
If you know the language, if it weren’t for taxes being per country and the rights and duties of Residents being different in different countries (such as the Mandatory Health Insurance for Residents in some countries but not others) hence the requirement to register after 3 months in some countries, the whole thing would be as easy as moving within your own country.
Interesting. So if you have decent work (or remote work), why not just leave the shittier countries and go to the best?
Well, the language is generally different, which is a big barrier to moving (though you can get away with just English in a most countries, but some stuff - often public services - is only in the local language). There is also a cultural element in that people behave and expect slightly different things in different countries, which can be a bit of an adjustment.
Even bigger than that is that most people aren’t comfortable with big changes and tend to stick to their own country - at the very least the first big move takes a significant amount of courage.
Then if you have your own house with lots of stuff you have to arrange for the move, which will probably cost you maybe €1500 - €3000 depending on the distance and how much stuff you have.
And finally, in my experience no country is all good or all shit - they generally have some good things and some bad things. Also, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence until you move there, were after a while it’s the grass on the other side of the fence that starts looking greener.
That said, some people - mainly the so-called Digital Nomads - do spend their life moving from country to country whilst working remotelly, which works especially well if you spend different Seasons in different places in Europe (some places are much better in the Summer and others in Winter). This is not new: I’ve met people whose life was working as Scuba Diver instructors in Summer in a country and as Ski Instructors in Winter in a different country.
That’s almost how I migrated, except I had to give a month’s notice at work and I’d already found an address to register at.
If you have a child it is more complicated than that. You need starting money to be able to move.
If you had a job that could sustain you and you get a new job within EU that can also sustain you, it’s about as expensive as you would expect a long distance move to be. There’s no system in place as far as I know to block you from getting permanent residency in another EU country because you don’t have starting money. That’s just your inherent responsability to figure out like with any move.
EU countries are allowed to, by Treaty, expel EU citizens who moved there without the means to live there or a job.
However it’s incredibly rare and there really isn’t any general procedure to do it: each country does it (or not) it’s own way. This tends to be used for people caught sleeping or begging on the streets.
Further, for countries in the Schengen Area, they don’t even know you’re there unless you register, since you haven’t passed any border controls and thus aren’t in any database as having arrived but not departed.
We are in complete agreement. Like I said if you get a job in another EU country there’s nothing stopping you from getting permanent residency there as well. The discussion was about moving with kids, which is the parents responsibility to figure out when it comes to cost and feasibility, but the EU will not stop them and does not impose additional barriers just because one has kids.
Grease is fucked
Honestly, I always thought it was overrated. Some catchy music, sure, but I don’t think it really holds up otherwise. Maybe the play was better?
The play was awful. Sam Simon performed a miracle.
That bad? Huh, wonder how it got picked up for a movie. Are the events behind the scenes interesting enough to look into?
He actually played some of the songs from the stage version for my class. Most of them were just dialog set to music.
The music sucks ass
Hahahaha! Well it’s not my cup of tea either, but I guess it must have resonated with a lot of boomers back in its day.
no it’s not good
Greece has some port big problems financially that are not going away any time soon. It needs change, it needs exports
Greek employers cannot find the staff they need. Greek coastguard pushes migrants off boats into the sea.
in my shithole country we have %30 unemployment and 6-day work week. Also it’s all slave wages regardless of your degree or experience. It’s a corrupt shithole system that enables itself to keep on staying shit by exploiting poor people and getting the rich richer.
Um, you’re describing Greece plus or minus some unemployment percentage points.
Those migrants aren’t staying in Greece, they want to go somewhere with an actual economy
If that were the case, why would the Greek coastguard give a shit?
Maybe the cruelty is the point?
Because of European asylum rules. Those migrants have to be processed in their country of entry.
Also, because they are racist fucks, who are paid to believe that Greece is being invaded.
I mean, from their POV, it absolutely would feel like it
They can cause issues while transiting through and they are required to give a shit because they’re part of the EU’s outer border control. And they might have fears of some of the migrants staying. I could imagine someone being in the coastguard cares about securing the border too even if there were none of the above issues.
Greek companies wonder why “nobody wants to work anymore.”
This is a false dichotomy. Employers can’t find the staff they need at the wages they are willing to pay. Immigrants are the scapegoat, not the solution.
For employers it can also be a solution, since you can pay them whatever and trust that they can’t go to the authorities about it or won’t join unions and so on
That’s the point. Obviously having an ever expanding underclass that can be exploited with no risk is preferable to paying workers more.
But they’ll take all of our incredibly desirable jobs!
I don’t know if it’s a good thing that all undesirable and underpaid jobs are taken or given to a class of people who are deemed cheap or undesirable
Flawed. What jobs are Greece lacking workers for? Can the said migrants fill those roles while simultaneously getting integrated into the societal norms and customs?
If yes. Cool.
If no. Not a solution.
I don’t agree to the pushing people into the sea. But one problem is not the solution to a different one.
Quota migrants are the way to go. Human trafficking is bad.
Migrants don’t join unions. Which make them way cheaper. A very cool way for the owning class to exploit the workers and bypass any union/organized labour restriction.
Noo that’s the wrong direction
Capitalism 📈 (the line is both profit and human suffering)
Plot twist: They are one and the same.
The thing is in this case, it’s only human suffering. People don’t actually work nonstop all week. Giving them fewer hours over four days means they’re more productive for those days because they’re not dragging out their work to fill the arbitrary 40 hours they have to work for. So companies pay workers the same, but can save money in amenities and office space or whatever by using it less AND have more productive workers. Longer work weeks don’t actually make companies more money (oversimplifying and speaking broadly).
Greece re-introduces the 6 day work week… It used to be the standard. Y’know, in the 18th fucking century
And the 19th, and a large part of the 20th too
Also, part of the 21st…
I’m 50 and I’ve worked 6-day weeks probably 90% of my working life which started at 14. Even before that, it’s not like you actually got the whole weekend off. I was an honors student, there was always tons of homework.
I’m never gonna have a lot of money but at least I had more time to myself.
At least your wife stayed home, right?
Well that’s some backwards bullshit.
employers are permitted to require staff to work up to two unpaid hours per day for a limited period in return for more free time.
Wow.
I hope this is at least banking that time; you don’t get overtime, but you can use that time later for paid time off.
Still sucks that it could be mandatory. I work in a government job in Australia and we have “Flexible Hours” which means that any time worked under or over the standard 7:30hrs per day counts towards a flex balance. Then we can use the excess flex balance to then taking shorter days or even take a couple days off if we have the balance for it. It works wonders for staff morale and retention.
Same boat mate - Aussie govt employee myself who has access to flex. Personally I felt it was better when I was working for an NGO and they always gave me the choice between being paid overtime or banking it to flex later. It was nice to get the extra cash when I needed it and extra leave when the time came too. That should be the standard the employee should have the choice between OT or extra leave.
I hope so too, that has to be a very difficult situation for working parents to navigate.
Greek Brain Drain incoming.
I mean how does the government regulate this even?
If I was a skilled worker, I’d tell the company I work 5 days or I don’t work for you …
Starvation and homelessness are quite powerful motivators.
neoliberalism in its essence
Thanks I hate it.
Greece had been effed since the austerity economics were placed on them due to the great big financial crisis where boys were declared to be too big to fail. Remember only regular working people are allowed to fail.
Better than South Korea’s 69 hour work week
No wonder they’re not having children if they spend all their time 69ing
That’s even worse than China’s 69 (six days, nine hours).
996 is the concept out of the Chinese tech industry I’m familiar with - from 9 to 9, 6 days a week, totalling 72 hours worked per week.
That’s the one, thank you.
Obligatory “nice”
Let’s call it nicen’t
That’s how you fuck up. Greece already had insane working hours, that doesn’t seem to be the problem.
Can they don’t
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After 15 years of recession and austerity and three rescue packages that came with tough conditions attached, labor in Greece is no longer strictly regulated.
Collective agreements have been frozen for years, and in many businesses, staff work on the basis of individual employment contracts.
Making sure that the authorities can do such monitoring tasks effectively is not a priority for the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Kazakos is in favor of collective wage agreements, which are, however, being increasingly limited by legislation passed by the ruling conservative New Democracy (ND) government.
The official reason for the introduction of the six-day work week is that there is a shortage of skilled workers on the Greek labor market.
The new Greek regulation on the six-day work week and the reduction in arbitration proceedings that comes with it are turning back the clock, Kazakos told DW.
The original article contains 812 words, the summary contains 145 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
