The Path from Underdevelopment to Building an 'Anemic' National Skills Strategy: The Case of Greece

In recent years, skills and, generally speaking, issues related to skills and skills policies, such as the mismatch between supply and demand in the labour force and the overqualification of employees, have been found, with increasing intensity, at the centre of interest of governments, organizations and a variety of policy actors in Greece. The foregoing interest is largely consistent with the EU interest in the establishment of national skills shortage strategies and the overall acknowledgement that skills development is accompanied by many benefits for employees themselves, enterprises, but also society and the economy as a whole. Against this backdrop, the present paper focuses on providing the reader with an overview of skills policies in Greece, and the path followed from underdevelopment to building an 'anemic' national skills strategy (in 2022). To this end, the findings from 14 semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of key policy agencies involved in the relevant field(s), such as the Hellenic Ministries of Education and Labour, and the Greek Public Employment Service, as well as policy experts and members of trade union confederations representing employers and employees, are taken into consideration. More specifically, the questions answered by the interviewees shed light upon six interrelated themes: the institutional-regulatory framework concerning skills policies in Greece; the agencies involved in the relevant field(s); the management of data and information regarding skills; the methodological approach and the methodological tools utilized for the analysis of skills policies; the presentation and dissemination of data concerning skills and skills policies; and the overall performance and sustainability of skills policies, including the system for the diagnosis of labour market needs. The paper highlights, among other things, the shift towards a more state-centred model of skills policies in Greece, as opposed to the weakening of the roles played by those representing the ‘world of employment’, acute difficulties in the coordination of different policy actors, as well as the overlapping responsibilities of newly established agencies, such as the Scientific Committee for Labour Market Skills and the Unit of Experts in Employment. Furthermore, the paper includes proposals targeted at improving the existing institutional-regulatory framework governing skills policies and, therefore, at strengthening the diagnosis of labour market needs, as well as at promoting a better match between labour market supply and demand in Greece. Examples include making more specific the roles of the agencies engaged in the system for the diagnosis of labour market needs, as well as utilizing skills-related information at various levels (regional, local, sectoral, professional) and enhancing the involvement of social partners in providing the labour market diagnosis mechanism with feedback on skills.