You may have seen by now that Greece is one step away from formalizing an agreement with India’s government to supply 50,000 Indian workers each year to bolster specific sectors of the Greek economy. These people will be both unskilled and skilled workers, and will likely be the recipient of lower tax obligations, compared to those of Greek citizens.
The idea that Greece is considering the strategic import of tens of thousands of foreign workers – instead of trying to attract the nearly five million Greeks living abroad – is puzzling, to say the least. Essentially, the Greek government has decided that transplanting mostly unskilled laborers from the third world is better than changing the social and economic circumstances that make jobs unworkable for the Greek people.
It makes sense, at least, why Indian laborers would want to find work in Greece. Indian labor is largely unskilled and cheap, and Greece has a high demand for low-paying jobs that Greeks and Diasporic Greeks would not want themselves. So, for Indian laborers, coming to work in Greece is attractive due to higher earning potential and our country’s generous social programs.
Our main point is this: why can’t the Greek government instead direct their efforts towards making it possible for Greek citizens to survive while working labor-intensive jobs? The sectors of the economy that lack competitive Greek labor have always been Greek. Agriculture, construction, and other manual labor jobs have always been done by Greeks, and there is no reason why they can’t continue to be done by Greeks.
In short, this economic initiative by the Greek government will net short-term gain for long-term ruin.
Let us remember that Greece as a nation has existed for thousands of years. It has endured famine, emigration, slavery, and genocide. But never, in the history of the Greek people, has there been an initiative to import foreign labor from half a world away to adjust for these conditions. Instead, the Greek people historically rallied around their common cause and built their nation up from the ashes time and again.
Greece, being a country of less than 10 million people, can never compete for labor against a country the size of India; with a population pool so large, it’s inevitable that more competitive labor be found abroad. However, this suggestion from our government – although economically feasible in the most basic sense – undermines the position of the Greek people and only serves to displace native Greek workers who already struggle to make ends meet.
The only reason why Greeks would not do them is because it is in the interest of the capitalist class to lower the bottom line and continue to increase their profit margins. Foreign labor is not the answer to the cultural and economic problems in Greece; rather; it only serves to perpetuate the issue and bring new cultural problems to the forefront.