About 150 refugees and asylum-seekers are employed each year at a cannery in Imathia, northern Greece, helping address a severe shortage of seasonal workers, the company’s chief executive said during a visit by Immigration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris on Monday.
Alexander SA, which has employed refugees from nearby accommodation facilities since 2021, is an example of “the first form of integration, which is work,” Plevris said.
The cannery requires up to 600 workers in three shifts per day during the 40- to 45-day peach-processing season, according to CEO Sotiris Skourtopoulos, who said the company turned to asylum-seeker facilities after struggling to recruit enough workers.
The refugees, mainly men from Sudan and Syria, work in fruit sorting and cleaning and are paid the legal wage. They are transported to the cannery by company buses from accommodation facilities in Kilkis, Veria and Alexandria, among others.
“The process is difficult because [the refugees] have to get social security numbers, tax numbers and open a bank account,” Skourtopoulos said.
