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How to hire remote employees in
Hiring in Greece can be notoriously difficult—but not when you know what you’re doing. If you want to hire remote talent in Greece, you have two options: Hire people as contractors, or hire them as employees.
If you want to successfully hire in
Greece
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Greece
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Greece
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Greece
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Greece
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Greece
, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Greece than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Greece.
7 public holidays and 4 optional holidays.
In case of sick leaves, the employer is obliged to pay the employee: 13 days only in the 1st year and 25 days from the 2nd year onwards. The days are paid by both the employer and the EFKA.
Maternity leave – 119 calendar days. (Only the 1st month is paid by the employer the rest is paid by the EFKA). 56 calendar days should be taken before the childbirth date and the remaining 63 calendar days after the birth.
In addition to the maternity leave, 6-month leave is paid the minimum wage by the labor Employment Office (OAED).
Instead of receiving reduced daily working hours mothers may agree with their employers to receive an extra 3.5 months leave paid by the employer.
Fathers are permitted 2 days of paid leave after the birth of their children.
2 days per childbirth paid by the employer.
Leave for children’s school grading: 4 working days for each child who is not older than 16 years old. This kind of leave may be used by one of the parents.
Elections leave: the duration is relating to the distance between the polling station and the workplace. Generally, is 1 to 3 working days.
5 working days.
2 working days for the death of husband/wife, child, parents, brothers.
An indefinite employment agreement is considered to be employed with a probationary period for the first 12 months of the agreement, which may be terminated during the probationary period without notice and without severance pay unless otherwise agreed by the parties.
After the first 12 months, the employee cannot be terminated without prior written notice from the employer, which will take effect from the day after the employee is notified.
These provisions apply for all forms of dismissals, including collective dismissals for employees that are not workers. Terminating workers doesn’t require any notice.
A fixed-term contract can be terminated by the employee or the employer before the end date immediately without notice period for a ‘Significant reason’. Significant reason includes events during the employer-employee relation which make it impossible to continue the agreement in good faith. If a significant reason exists, the employer is not obliged to pay compensation.
Furthermore, article 40 of law 3986/2011 mentions that a fixed-term employment contract, which includes a term for early termination in accordance with requires severance calculation is automatically converted into an indefinite-term employment contract upon termination.
If the employment relationship is based on a fixed-term contract, it can be terminated immediately without notice by either the employee or employer. However, a reason (i.e. breach of contract, failure to comply with the terms of the contract, etc.) is given. If no reason is given, the employee is able to make claim in court and is able to receive compensation for the wages that would have been received until the contract expiry date.
If the employment contract is for an indefinite period, the length of the notice period depends on the length that the employee has been employed:
Number of Years: 1-2 years
Notice Period: 1 month
Number of Years: 2-5 years
Notice Period: 2 months
Number of Years: 5-10 years
Notice Period: 3 months
Number of Years: 10 years+
Notice Period: 4 months
For non-workers with indefinite employment agreement the severance pay is calculated as follows:
Up to 1 year of service – no severance pay required
From one year of service – the severance changes according to the length of service and can be up to 12 months of severance.
Full Time employment is considered 40 hours weekly, and 8 hours daily.
Extra Time (Iperergasia): The maximum time per day is 1 hour and is paid at a rate of 120% of the regular salary.
Overtime (Iperoria): The maximum time per day is 2 hours and 120 hours per year. These hours are paid at a rate of 140% of the regular salary. For more than 120 hours per year, approval from the Greek Labor of Ministry is required.
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