With the recent publication of the Presidential Decree 62/2025 (Government Gazette A’/121/11-7-2025) and the issuance of the new Law 5239/2025 (Government Gazette A’ 178/17-10-2025) “Fair Work for All: Simplification of Legislation – Support to the Employee – Protection in Practice- Measures for pension and other provisions”, significant changes have taken place in the field of labor law.

The main changes concerning labor relations, health and safety in labor, as well as social security obligations of employees and employers, are summarized as follows:

I. NEW PRESIDENTIAL DECREE 62/2025

With the adoption of the Presidential Decree 62/2025, which replaced the Presidential Decree 80/2022, the provisions of individual labor law were codified and the provisions of collective labor law and the provisions on health and safety were incorporated into a single legal code.

In particular, the provisions of individual labor law regarding employment agreements (no. 1-367), as well as the provisions of collective labor law, which regulate the operation of trade unions, collective labor agreements, the right to strike and the participation of workers in EU-wide enterprises (no. 368-490) were codified. In addition, the provisions on health and safety in labor were codified, with emphasis on the role of the occupational doctor and the safety technician, the regulations for accidents at work and the digital organization and supervision of labor (no. 491 – 560).

II. NEW LABOR LAW

In the context of the labor law reforms, Law 5239/2025 with the title “Fair Work for All: Simplification of Legislation – Support for the Employee – Protection in Practice- Measures for retirement and other provisions” was voted recently by the Parliament and amended the Presidential Decree 62/2025.

The key changes of the new Law are the following:

A. Individual Labor Law

  1. Simplification of recruitment & Reduction of bureaucracy
  • The new law speeds up and simplifies the recruitment process of employees, which can now be completed by submitting a single document (Digital Recruitment Announcement) by the employer.
  • It is no longer necessary to submit the employment agreement and any amendments thereto in digital form to ERGANI II; it suffices to submit the employee’s recruitment announcement and the “Declaration for change(s) in the Employment Relationship” for each change. Furthermore, it is no longer necessary to submit an employee list, which is replaced by the digital organization of working hours.
  • At the same time, the obligation to keep documents in hard copy at the place of work, such as the annual employee list, the working hours program, the employee salary statements, the employment agreements and the employee leave book, is annulled.
  • A special electronic application under the name “Ergani” is being introduced, in which the employer can upload, submit, and modify the declarations and forms submitted to ERGANI II Information System.
  • The employee has the right to submit on his own a notice of resignation to ERGANI II in the event of resignation, instead of the employer. The employer is automatically notified via ERGANI II of the submission of (resignation) notice on behalf of the employee.
  • The unjustified (arbitrary) absence of the employee for a period exceeding three (3) consecutive working days (instead of five {5} consecutive working days as previously applied) may be considered as termination of the contract on his part, provided that an additional period of two (2) consecutive working days (instead of five {5} as previously applied) have elapsed since the employer’s mandatory notice (to the employee), which a) is duly submitted to ERGANI II and b) is proven by any appropriate written means. The employee automatically receives the notice via “MyErgani”. In this case, the employer is obliged, within two (2) working days from the end of the above period, to report the employee’s voluntary resignation to ERGANI II, without the employee’s signature.
  • At the same time, fast-track recruitment of employees with a fixed-term employment contract, full-time or part-time, with duration up to two (2) days per week, through a special electronic application “Rapid Recruitment” to cover urgent needs (article 578A of Presidential Decree 62/2025) is also introduced.
  1. Overtime work of employees

Pursuant to the new Law, the limits on overtime work are readjusted, so that employees can work overtime up to four (4) hours per day (i.e., up to 13 hours per day in total) until the completion of 150 hours per year in a single employer. For each hour of overtime work, a fee equal to the hourly wage will be paid increased by forty percent (40%). The employee has the right to refuse to work overtime provided that such refusal is not against goodwill. The new Law provides that the dismissal of the employee in such case will be invalid.

Overtime work is now provided also for the shift work regime (“ek peritropis”). Shift work regime is the employment of an employee for fewer days per week or fewer weeks per month or fewer months per year, or a combination thereof, on a full-time daily basis.

  1. New working arrangement system

For reasons of flexibility, arrangement of working time is allowed and it may be agreed that for a period of time the employee will work two (2) extra hours per day in addition to the eight (8) hours (period of increased employment) provided that the additional hours are deducted from the working hours of another period (period of reduced employment). The duration of the periods of increased and reduced employment (reference period) may be from one week to twelve (12) months.

Based on this provision, four-day weekly work (10 hours per day) can now be applied for the whole year by agreement between the employee and the employer.

  1. Annual leave

The employee may submit in writing a request to receive his or her leave in more periods, one of which must be more than six (6) working days for a six-day working system and more than five (5) working days for a five-day working system or, in the case of minors, twelve (12) working days.

In other words, the restriction that has been in force until now, according to which, in case of splitting the leave time into several periods, one period had to include at least 10 working days in the five-day working system or 12 working days in the six-day system, is abolished.

Furthermore, employers are now required to submit electronically to ERGANI II the days of leave of the employee, within the calendar month following the month in which it was granted, rather than within one (1) hour of its commencement, as was the case until now.

  1. Allowances and other rights of an employee
  • The parental leave allowance is tax-free, non-assignable and non-confiscable.
  • The protection of dismissal is extended to foster parents, as well as the maternity leave is also extended to an employee who becomes a foster parent. An “employee who becomes a foster parent” means a working woman who is registered in the National Register of Prospective Foster Parents and, following a court decision or a prosecutor’s order or a contract or an investigator’s order or a decision of the Minister of Justice, she is entrusted with the actual care or custody of a minor.
  1. Digital Work Card

The new Law settles practical issues related to the Digital Work Card, such as flexible attendance and preparation time. In detail, the following provisions are introduced:

(a) Businesses that have entered the Digital Work Card System and activated it may agree in writing with their employees on flexible attendance for up to one hundred and twenty (120) minutes per day.

(b) The digital card must be marked: a) at the start of the declared working hours, after the time needed to prepare for work, and b) at the end of the declared working hours, before the time needed to prepare for departure. For businesses whose main activity, based on their K.A.D. code, belongs to the industrial sector, the preparation time may not exceed thirty (30) minutes, while for businesses in all other sectors, the preparation time may not exceed ten (10) minutes.

(c) The detection of more than three (3) odd markings of the Digital Card per month per employee, when not justified by the nature or organization of working time or force majeure or objective impossibility, and is due to the employee’s negligence, constitutes grounds for inspection by the Labor Inspectorate in the context of risk assessment analysis.

Employers who are required to participate in the Digital Work Card System for all their employees are determined pursuant to the Ministerial Decision no. 49758/2022 (Government Gazette B’ 2668/ 2022), as amended and in force.

Also, there is an employee protection clause that prohibits reduction of earnings due to the inclusion of the employer in the digital work card system, considering it as a harmful change in working conditions.

B. Health and safety provisions

The new Law also introduces a series of new provisions for the protection of health and safety at work, the most significant of which are the following:

  • The role of the Workers’ Health and Safety Committees (EAE) and their representatives, as well as the Internal Services for the Protection and Prevention of Workers (ESYPP), is strengthened.
  • The classification of companies into risk categories based on the sector of economic activity and the list of permitted specialties for the undertaking of safety technician and occupational doctor duties are updated.
  • The presence of a health and safety coordinator in technical projects, depending on their size, becomes mandatory for the prevention of accidents at work.
  • When assigning safety technician and/or occupational doctor duties to employees within the company or to individuals outside the company, the employer is required to submit electronically to the competent Labor Inspectorate a list of the material and technical infrastructure, in particular personal protective equipment and harmful factor meters, and the personnel available to the company to meet its obligations.
  • The employer may himself exercise the duties of a safety technician in companies that fall under categories B’ and C’ of article 500 of Presidential Decree 62/2025 and employ up to twenty (20) employees and not fifty (50) as was the case until now.
  • In the employer’s general obligations is now included the obligation to inform the safety technician and the occupational doctor of any scheduled changes in the production process and the manner of the company’s organization in terms of health and safety in labor (such as changes in training, specialization, the manner of employment of employees, or the use of new technical equipment or changes in the manner of use of existing technical equipment, the job positions of newly hired employees), and the obligation to follow their instructions. The instructions of the occupational doctor and the safety technician should now be recorded exclusively in writing in a special book, which is kept in electronic form in the Integrated Information System of the Labor Inspectorate (OPS-SEPE).
  • The employer is obliged to notify the Labor Inspectorate and the e-E.F.K.A. in case of a work-related illness of an employee, within five (5) days from his/her notification by the occupational doctor, or from the presentation of a diagnosis by a public doctor.
  • An obligation for the employer to provide its employees with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and Heimlich grip training in accordance with the terms of the law is established.
  • A regulation is being introduced for the creation of the Integrated Information System “HRIDANOS” for the documentation and monitoring of health and safety issues.
  • It is possible for an employer to assign the necessary measurements directly to EXYPP, to the Hellenic Institute of Health and Safety at Work (E.IN.Y.A.E.), to Higher Education Institutions or to research centers.
  • The following ILO International Labor Conventions are ratified and become law:
    -International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 155 on Safety and Health at Work and the Working Environment (1981)
    -the ILO International Convention 191 on “Amendments to International Labor Rules Related to the Recognition of a Safe and Healthy Working Environment as a Fundamental Principle” (2023) and
    -the Protocol to the International Labor Convention 29 “On Forced or Compulsory Labor” (2014).

C. Social security provisions

  • Exemption from surcharges to social security contributions is provided in case of an increase in the remuneration of employees for overwork, overtime, night work, work on Sundays and holidays.
  • The basis for calculating the Pensioners’ Solidarity Contribution and the Special Contribution for Pensioners Supplementary Insurance in the case of the employment of pensioners is reformulated so that when the working pensioner is entitled to an increase in his pension from his work, the additional benefit does not lead to an increase in the coefficient of the Pensioners’ Solidarity Contribution.
  • A provision is also introduced according to which, for the completion of the required insurance period for granting the pregnancy and postpartum allowance, the total insurance period of the employee covered in the e-E.F.K.A., is counted.
  • It is now possible to use postal voting in pension organizations, without being mandatory.

D. Provisions for the Labor Inspectorate and DYPA

Finally, regulations are introduced to strengthen the institutional role of the Independent Authority “Labor Inspectorate”, concerning its administrative organization and the coverage of its operational needs, the protection of inspectors during the performance of inspections and the improvement of their employment conditions. Provisions are also introduced to improve training conditions, support the educational staff of DYPA and adjust their benefits.