Filenews 10 September 2025 - by Charalambos Zakos
The Ministry of Labour announced in the past few days a plan to provide incentives for the hiring of inactive women, with flexible employment arrangements. The aim of the plan is to encourage employers to hire women who – for whatever reason – do not want to work or cannot work under "normal" working conditions.
The state will essentially give €48 per day for 10 months to the employer, provided that the person will continue to be employed for another two months without the subsidy and that the recruitment will be done with flexible employment arrangements and will concern a woman who has not been looking for a job for the last 28 days. The goal is to employ at least 470 women.
In particular, based on the terms:
– The unit of cost for this Sponsorship Scheme was set at €48/working day and corresponds to the amount of the grant that each beneficiary will receive for each working day completed by the beneficiary, regardless of the actual salary cost borne by the employer/beneficiary. "The sponsorship will be granted for the first ten months of employment and with the obligation of the employer to maintain the employee's employment for two additional months without a subsidy. Based on the unit of cost, the maximum possible grant for the period of the Public Funding Agreement amounts to €8,600.00.
What do we mean by "inactive women"?
According to the plan, "inactive women" are considered to be women who are not employed/self-employed/PES registered and have not been looking for work in the last 28 days. Under this Plan, the 28 days will be determined based on her active registration as Unemployed in the PES.
Flexible employment arrangements
As mentioned above, a basic condition for the beneficiaries of the plan is to be given flexible employment arrangements by employers. According to the definitions in the Ministry's plan, flexible employment conditions concern:
◗ Teleworking: Fulfilment of work duties by the employee, exclusively from his home, or from the physical space he chooses, using the possibilities offered by modern information and communication technologies.
◗ Alternating/Mixed Teleworking: Combination of teleworking, as defined above, with regular work within the company's premises.
Flexible/Flexible working hours: The employee decides the time of arrival and departure each day within certain frameworks set by the employer, but covering a basic core working hours.
◗ Individual working time accounts: The working time of each employee is kept in total on a certain time basis (for the purposes of inclusion in the Scheme, the monthly basis will be kept) and there is the possibility of allocating – "consuming" it, depending on the needs of the company and/or the wishes of the employee, so that periods of intensive employment alternate with periods of leave and/or reduced hours, for which there is no salary fluctuation.
◗ Compressed working week: The employee can work their total weekly hours over a period of fewer days (e.g. 4 days instead of 5 but the working hours remain constant).
◗ Part-time employment: Part-time employment compared to the working hours applicable to full-time employees, who also work as employees in the same or similar object or profession.
◗ Job Sharing: Two people share (at their request) the duties, rights, working hours and remuneration that derive from a job.
It goes without saying, as the Ministry of Labour emphasizes, that the type of flexible employment arrangement to be chosen should be clearly defined in the employment contract and in the case of either an administrative audit or an on-site verification it can be documented.
