Mind the (twin) gap: Job quality in Greece in comparative perspective

The nature and level of job quality in the Greek labour market has been an underexplored issue in academic and policy debates for several years. Before the deep and persistent crisis of the Greek economy in the post-2009 period, the discourse on job quality among political and policy circles (e.g. trade unions, employers, the government, and political parties) was, more often than not, based on anecdotal evidence. The debate also focused on crude indicators of quality, drawing on macro-level data related to the average level of wages, the minimum wage increases, or the average number of working hours. Perhaps this omission can be attributed to a cyclical effect: In a fast-growing economy, with rising wage levels and – to a lesser extent – rising employment levels, the qualitative aspects of everyday working life can be obscured by increasing relative affluence, rising household incomes, and increased spending and consumption (Clark 2005; Green 2006).