The port of Parikia on the Greek island of Paros bustles with tourists shopping, dining, and catching ferries during their summer holiday. Some restaurants had a long line of people waiting to get a table.
Behind the busy vacation feeling lies another sentiment – a frustration among Greeks about their economic prospects. Waiters, taxi drivers and hotel staff repeatedly said, when asked, that Greece has become a great country to visit, not such a great place to live and prosper.
At the Pirate’s Bar in Parikia, a waitress from Athens explained that she made more money serving €15 cocktails to customers than working as a psychologist. Like many university graduates, she hasn’t been able to find a decent-paying job utilizing the degree she earned.
Complaints heard in Athens, Mykonos and Paros raise doubts that the “remarkable turnaround” in Greece is trickling down. Greece’s economy grew by 2.2% year-on-year in Q1 2025, slowing from a downwardly revised 2.5% expansion in the preceding quarter.
Annual GDP growth rates, Greece, source: Trading Economics
“Once regarded as Europe’s economic Achilles’ heel, Greece is now emerging as an unlikely success story,” Konstantinos Hatzidakis, vice president of Greece and a former minister of economy and finance, wrote in June for the IMF. “This remarkable turnaround is underpinned by positive growth rates outpacing the European Union average
Hatzidakis also pointed to “a significant rebound in investment, historically high exports, and a decline in unemployment to levels unseen in over a decade.”
Inflation Weighs on Consumer Spending
Greeks working in the service sector complained about the cost of living and weak wage growth. European Union-harmonised annual inflation rate …