Authorities in Greece have scrapped an extra six-day holiday enjoyed by civil servants who use a computer for more than 5 hours a day, that is practically every civil servant with a desk job.
"The working hours that will be the result of this measure are the equivalent of hiring an extra 5,000 civil servants," Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said adding that the holiday, which was first granted in 1989, belonged to another era."
The move is part of Athens' austerity drive after it received bailouts totalling €240 billion since 2009 by the EU and the IMF. The money comes with strict conditions, along them drastic reform of Greece's bloated and inefficient civil service.
Greece has pledged to place up to 25,000 public sector workers into a mobility pool by the end of this year. If a civil service position job is not found for them within a few months, they will be made redundant.