First established 70 years ago, in 1954, the Greek Public Employment Service (DYPA) is an official public authority serving as a key operational arm in the fight against unemployment, leveraging a range of policies and actions to support and strengthen the workforce and the labor market in Greece, with a multifaceted approach that is not limited only to programs and initiatives but also embraces and builds upon ideas and discussions.
In this two-part Employing Potential special, Spiros Protopsaltis, Ph.D., Governor and Chair of the Board of Directors of DYPA and President of the National Skills Council is interviewed by Employment Committee Chair Dr. Venetia Koussia and talks about stepping into his role as head of the Public Employment Service, his goals for DYPA and his vision for employment in Greece, the need to keep up with the ever-evolving demands of the labor market, and the roles and relationship between DYPA and the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce.
After almost 25 years in the US, you came back to Greece to pursue the next chapter in your career. Tell us about your journey and the factors that led to your decision to return home.
After finishing my studies in Boston, New York, and Denver, I worked in politics in Washington—initially for then-Congressman and now-Governor Jared Polis of Colorado, who served on the Education and Labor Committee of the House of Representatives, then for Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa who chaired the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and later on as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Education during the Obama Administration. After politics, I became an Associate Professor of Education Policy at George Mason University, where I also ran a research center.
After 24 years in the United States, I decided to return to Greece to serve my home country and its people and to help the country move forward and become stronger with the experience, knowledge and skills that I gained while studying and working abroad. Luckily, in 2019, I was given the opportunity to return and give back as Governor and Chair of the Board of Directors of an organization in dire need of reform, the country’s public employment agency, then still known as the Greek Manpower Employment Organization (OAED). My task was straightforward: to reform, modernize, and improve the organization, doing so at a time when the unemployment rate stood at almost 18%.
Our major challenge now is the skills mismatch and worker shortages in high-demand fields
It was a huge challenge, but also an enormous opportunity to have a real impact. Essentially, I was tasked with transforming a bureaucratic and sluggish organization into a modern European public employment service finally able to provide effective and user-friendly services, focusing on matching labor market supply and demand—in other words, finding work for the unemployed and workers for businesses—and supporting the entire labor force to adapt to the rapidly changing labor market through large-scale upskilling and reskilling. Today, unemployment has decreased to almost 10% and our major challenge now is the skills mismatch and worker shortages in high-demand fields.
How can Greece attract more skilled professionals? What must be done to attract and retain talent, particularly in sectors crucial to the country’s economic development?
In order to introduce policies that will make working in Greece more attractive, we need to look more closely and better understand the reasons why Greeks living abroad chose to leave in the first place and do not choose to repatriate. In a recent survey, while about half of respondents expressed a desire to return to Greece, they cited low wages and working conditions as the primary obstacles to doing so, with bureaucracy and the corporate culture in workplaces cited as major challenges.
The attraction of talent, especially through the repatriation of highly skilled Greeks who left during the economic crisis, has already begun; 350,000 of the 600,000 who left during the brain drain period have already returned. The Greek government is implementing appropriate measures, including tax incentives for repatriates, but businesses must also do their part, investing in human capital, improving salaries and conditions, and creating more appealing and competitive environments. I can tell you first-hand that Greeks who want to return know that they’ll have to take a salary cut and that their income will not be equal or come close to what they were earning abroad, so their desire to return is obviously not based on an economic rationale. They return to be close to family and friends, to contribute and give back to their country, and to enjoy the weather and culture—but they expect to have a job that matches their studies and qualifications, is in sync with their experience and aspirations, and provides sufficient economic security and standards of living. Of course, they also value meritocracy, as most of them achieved everything on their own, through hard work and continuous development of their knowledge and skills.
The attraction of talent has already begun: 350,000 of the 600,000 who left during the brain drain period have already returned
What are DYPA’s primary goals moving forward?
Our primary job is to combat unemployment and promote employment through active labor market policies such as training, counseling, and wage subsidies, as well as to also provide an effective safety net for the unemployed, working mothers, and other vulnerable groups in the labor market. We operate 116 one-stop job centers through eight regional directorates, and we also operate 50 apprenticeship schools, 30 institutes of vocational education, seven adult training centers, 26 nurseries for working families, and two special vocational rehabilitation centers for persons with disabilities. At the same time, we are responsible for housing policy and operate a number of social policy programs, such as social tourism and summer camps for the children of both workers and the unemployed. In total, we have about 5,000 employees across Greece.
The government has prioritized DYPA’s transformation, through a governance reform enacted in 2022, a shift of focus from safety net policies to active labor market policies, the digitalization of services, a renewed focus on supporting and expanding vocational education and training, a new framework of activation policies that seek to promote a jobs-first approach thought our operations, a reactivation of housing policy that had been dormant for over a decade, as well as the full utilization of European Recovery and Resilience Facility funding to upskill and reskill the Greek labor force in digital and green skills.
We have made significant progress on all fronts and are also incorporating new tools for evidence-based and data-driven policymaking and administration so that DYPA can operate based on best practices and sound analysis. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has set an ambitious but realistic goal to reduce the unemployment rate below 8% by 2027, and we are working hard to make that happen. I’m optimistic that we will achieve the goal and, why not, maybe even sooner.
