The high cost of labor is changing the way workers are paid. Salary raises are less and less common through pay itself. High non-salary costs are compelling companies to look for alternative ways to remunerate their employees, so that more money ends up in their pockets and not in social security and taxes.
Meal and fuel arrangements, benefits in kind, bonuses and – where the legal form of the business allows – even distribution of dividends have become key elements of a new remuneration policy spreading in the market.
This trend seems to affect government planning as well. Kathimerini understands the Finance Ministry is measuring the fiscal cost of an increase in the tax- and social security-free amount for the cost of feeding staff, which currently amounts to €6 per working day. The intervention is being mulled as part of an upcoming economic package, along with another reduction in social security contributions of at least half a percentage point, as of January 1.
The two interventions are directly linked. The aim is to further reduce non-wage costs and give businesses more flexibility to increase the net earnings of employees without a corresponding increase in total labor costs. After all, the demand comes from the market itself.
