In fear of the Troika, searching for the "one to five" ratio

In fear of the Troika, representatives of which have been present in Athens since Monday in order to hear the government’s new fiscal measures of over 25 billion and ascertain the state of implementation of government commitments, George Dolios, Secretary of the Interior, sent a circular out requesting information on recruitment and retirement of public service permanent employees for the first quarter of 2011.

The circular notes that in order to implement the measure of one to five ratio, “we must send out the total numbers of those retired, of those hired and all those serving by the end of every quarter”.

The circular further states that in addition to known factors (recruitment, departures, serving employees), data transfers and personnel moves will also be recorded, both within the narrow public sector (public services, public entities, local authorities) as well as the broader sector (SOEs, private entities, etc). The transfers from the broader public sector to government agencies are counted as new recruits and as such, will be recorded in the relevant statistics.