Is prosperity possible without education, productive labour, and up-to-date skills? Naftemporiki, Special Edition, Thessaloniki International Fair Special Edition, Monday 9 September 2019
Can there be prosperity without education, productive labour,
and up-to-date skills? Many have and still believe that Greece has experienced
such prosperity for several years. It was, however, a borrowed prosperity,
riding on debt.
It required persistent deficits of the State
and ever increasing borrowing. Not only did it prove to be short-lived and
detrimental, but also placed on the shoulders of younger generations billions
of public and private debt. It also undermined the values of education,
productive labour, and labour skills and competencies ― values not easily
cultivated. As a result, after 10 years of austerity crisis and inevitable
adjustments, the economic recovery and prosperity of Greek society are far from
ensured.
The prosperity of any society, as well as the
Greek society, increased social income, and the quality of life shall be
dependent upon increased social production. This simply means a speedier
increase in employees and their productivity.
In Greece, the employment rate of the
population between 20 and 64 years of age is 59.5%, the lowest in the EU,
whereas the average rate in the EU-28 is 73.2%. The average production per
working hour in Greece is at 80% of the average rate in the EU-28. And while in
Greece it is decreasing, in the member states that it is lowest, this rate is
increasing with a tendency to exceed the Greek performance. The average
productivity per working hour is fortunately not the lowest in the EU. That is
because Greece maintained a sector of producing marketable goods and services
internationally, corresponding to 24% of the GDP. However, productivity levels
have been shrinking on a regular basis, as a result of lack in education,
productive labour and contemporary skills. In the years of bankruptcy,
2009-2010, the GDP shrunk further, eventually amounting to 18.7% with the
outcome we know all too well.
During the latest years, the economy has
avoided collapsing in 2015 to 2016 and has maintained its positive figures in
2017-2018 owing to production, investments, and exports in the industries of
internationally marketable goods: manufacturing sectors, information and
communication technologies, mining, transports (including shipping), the
tourist industry.
With the industries and enterprises on the
technological edge of manufacturing, information and communication, the growing
gap separating the country from the 4th Industrial Revolution has to be
mitigated. A much needed increase of the share of industry from 9.6% of the GDP
that is today to 12% requires the mobilization of numerous productive
investments and the appropriate human resources, while the EU is at 16% and
aims for 20%. Doubling today’s 2.9% of information and communication
technologies is also required.
However, Greece is currently facing
fundamental and elemental deficiencies in education and skills, instead of
creatively dealing with the new opportunities of dynamic growth offered to
economies by contemporary technology and contemporary international open
economy. Recent research conducted by the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises,
confirming findings of international comparisons by the EU and the OECD, showed
that 35.6% of the enterprises of the economy’s productive sector already face
difficulties in filling vacancies. The percentage is higher in outward-looking
(45.9%) and large enterprises (44.7%). That is, in enterprises which are
presumably active in more competitive markets.
Greece’s needs for productive transformation
render education a major factor in endogenous and sustainable growth. The
values of productive labour, labour skills and competencies must be enforced
with the appropriate employment and education policies and become socially
powerful as there can be no prosperity without education, productive labour,
and contemporary skills and enterprises.
