Four in 10 civil servants aged over 55
Greece ranks third in the percentage of civil servants over 55 years of age according to the new report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
More specifically, while the average for the OECD countries is 26%, in Greece that percentage is 37%.
With 48%, Italy has the highest percentage of middle-aged civil servants in the public sector, followed by Spain with 46%.
According to the same survey, countries with older civil officials are more likely to experience difficulties in enacting necessary policies.
Experts note that the civil service must be able to cope with the challenge of digital transformation on the one hand, but also with the new demands of citizens in their relationship with the state on the other.
As the entire population of the European Union and Greece in particular is aging, it will need more and more help and support. Public officials will also need to develop the ability to help and interact effectively with citizens. In particular, an increasing number of necessary documents can now be searched for digitally, which requires different processing times. Soon the familiar phrase of civil servants “We need another document” will no longer be used as an alibi for delay.
In Greece, the implementation of restrictive measures regarding new recruitment in the public sector during the decade of Greece’s financial crisis certainly played a role as no new blood was not allowed to enter.
However, a public administration official says that the biggest problem is not age but mentality. “When I told an employee many years ago I wanted to show him how to make computerized receipts and stop writing them by hand, he replied, ‘What do I need these for? In 20 years I will retire.’”
