Foreign inspectors want lower labor costs

Representatives of Greece’s foreign lenders, in Athens for a round of meetings with the government, were expected to press the debt-wracked country to cut labor costs at private businesses, Kathimerini said on Monday.

Inspectors from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, who launched a review of Greece on Monday, were expected to propose a number of further measures, including reducing holiday bonus payments and scrapping wage increases agreed on under a 2010 collective labor agreement.

Greece narrowly averted bankruptcy this month after foreign creditors agreed to release an 8-billion euro tranche of aid. But the country remains at risk of ending the year with a deeper-than-expected hole in its finances as a recession hits targeted tax revenue.