For much of the late twentieth century in Greece, a job in the public sector was widely seen as the surest path to stability. Families encouraged their children to pursue government employment, valuing the steady income, job security and social status it promised.
Today that aspiration is fading. Younger Greeks, including many millennials born during the peak expansion of public employment between 1981 and 1996, are increasingly reluctant to join the state workforce. Instead they are turning to private-sector opportunities or seeking work abroad, reflecting deeper structural problems in Greece’s labour market and public administration.
Data from Greece’s Supreme Council for Civil Personnel Selection, the independent authority responsible for public-sector hiring, show that even candidates who successfully pass the competitive recruitment process are frequently declining the jobs offered to them. The trend is particularly pronounced among highly educated professionals.
The recruitment system itself has undergone significant reforms. The time between the announcement of a competition and the publication of results has shortened in recent years, and traditional paper-based examinations have been replaced by computer-based tests conducted in modern examination centres. Yet while the process has become more efficient, the challenge now lies in persuading qualified candidates to accept the positions once they are offered.
Low pay is a major deterrent. The starting salary for a new public-sector employee in Greece is about €1,092 a month before taxes and without the holiday bonuses and leave allowances that once supplemented civil servants’ income. Even after recent legislative changes, wages are not expected to rise significantly in the near future. As a result, professionals such as engineers, information technology specialists, doctors, lawyers, social workers and childcare workers show little interest in government careers.
Some professions still see value in public employment because they are permitted, under certain conditions, to maintain private practice alongside their government position. For them, the state job can serve primarily as a way to secure pension rights while continuing to earn income privately.
The difficulties are evident in the recruitment process itself. In one municipality in the Attica region, three positions were advertised but only one was eventually filled. After nearly three years of procedures before the competition was completed and the results finalised, one successful candidate chose not to relocate from the western Greek city of Patras to take up the job. Another had already secured employment in the UK and decided not to return.
At the other end of the spectrum are applicants who apply indiscriminately for multiple competitions. In one instance, a single candidate submitted applications for 31 different positions, despite the fact that each role required distinct academic qualifications. Such cases complicate the verification of credentials and add further delays to the already lengthy recruitment process.
Even for those who do enter the public sector, career advancement can be slow and uncertain. One widely cited example involves a position for a general director that was first advertised in 2004. A candidate was selected two years later, but the appointment was annulled in 2011 after a rival applicant challenged the decision in Greece’s highest administrative court. The process was repeated in 2014, the official was eventually appointed two years later, and further legal challenges led to additional annulments by 2024.
By then, two decades after the position had first been advertised, both candidates involved had already retired.
Official figures show that in some professional categories between 50 and 75 per cent of successful candidates ultimately refuse to take up public-sector posts. Engineers and IT specialists are among those most likely to decline offers.
The trend presents a growing dilemma for the Greek state. While the government is pushing ahead with efforts to digitise public administration, it risks lacking the specialised workforce needed to support that transformation. Shortages are also emerging in other sensitive sectors, including childcare services, legal departments and parts of the social welfare system.
Officials at the interior ministry are aware of the shift and are exploring ways to make public-sector careers more attractive. A recently adopted law governing the civil service introduces new systems for evaluating public employees and rewarding performance. Whether such measures will be sufficient to reverse declining interest in government employment remains uncertain.
