Interior Minister Yiannis Ragoussis on Wednesday again ruled out imminent layoffs, stressing that "for the time being, there is no question of layoffs in the public sector including employees with a permanent status and those under open-ended work contracts".
Speaking in Parliament during the e-government draft law discussion, he underlined that "on the contrary, the government has avoided a pressing dilemma to proceed with the layoffs of 200,000 public sector employees when soon after the 2009 elections it adopted drastic reductions in their number. This was achieved through the abolition of the STAGE contracts, the considerable reduction of contract workers and the local government administration mergers introduced by the "Kallikratis" local government reform programme."
Ragoussis also stressed that 150,000 employees have retired during the recent period, while the clause "one hiring for five retirements" has brought a drastic payroll cost reduction, pointing out that there is no question of additional layoffs.
"The new system is based on the principle that the strict evaluation of employees is necessary to counteract a long absence of meritocracy that stemmed from client relations practices that dominated in the past," he said.
ANA-MPA
