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Government Building

Greece's legislature has given the green light a hotly debated work legislation that enables extended-length working days, despite fierce resistance and nationwide strike actions.

The administration claimed the measure will modernize Greek labor regulations, but critics from the progressive faction labeled it as a "harmful law."

Key Elements of the New Work Legislation

According to the freshly approved law, yearly overtime is also at 150 hours, while the regular 40-hour workweek continues as before.

The government emphasizes that the longer workday is elective, solely applies to the business sector, and can exclusively be used for up to thirty-seven days each year.

Parliamentary Backing and Resistance

Thursday's vote was supported by MPs from the governing centre-right political group, with the moderate faction – now the primary opposition – rejecting the bill, while the progressive party abstained.

Worker organizations have staged multiple protests demanding the law's repeal recently that halted public transport and services to a stop.

Government Defense and Employee Protections

A senior official supported the legislation, claiming the changes bring in line national laws with modern labor-market realities, and accused critics of misinforming the public.

These regulations will give workers the option to take on extra work with the same employer for 40% higher pay, while ensuring they will not be fired for declining extra hours.

This complies with EU working-time regulations, which cap the average workweek to 48 hours including extra hours but allow adjustments over a year, as stated by the government.

Critical Perspectives and Union Responses

However, critics have charged the administration of eroding employee protections and "driving the country back to a medieval work era." They argue Greek employees currently work longer hours than most EU citizens while earning less and still "struggle to make ends meet."

The public-sector union stated variable shifts in reality mean "the abolition of the standard workday, the disruption of personal time and the legalisation of excessive labor."

Previous Workplace Reforms and Financial Background

In 2024, Greece enacted a six-day work schedule for certain sectors in a bid to boost the economy.

Recent legislation, which came into effect at the beginning of July, permit workers to work up to forty-eight hours in a workweek as instead of forty.

EU Work Data and National Financial Metrics

• Across the European Union in the previous year, the highest working weeks were recorded in Greece (39.8 hours), followed by Bulgaria (39.0), Poland (38.9) and Romania.
• The shortest work hours in the bloc is in the Netherlands (32.1), according to Eurostat.
• As of January 2025, Greece's national base pay was nine hundred sixty-eight euros a month, placing it in the bottom group among European nations.
• Unemployment, which had peaked at twenty-eight percent during the economic downturn, was 8.1% in August versus an EU average of five point nine percent, data from Eurostat show.
• The country is recovering since its decade-long debt crisis, which ended in 2018, but wages and quality of life remain among the poorest in the EU.