The manufacturing sector of Greece before and during the financial crisis

Abstract

The Greek industry achieved its best performance in the 1970s when it participated in GDP with approximately 20% and around 400,000 employees or 12% of all employees. Today, the participation percentage of manufacturing in GDP has been reduced to 5.4% with 168,000 jobs or 4.5% of total employment. The aim of this paper is to monitor through appropriate indicators the evolution of performance and competitiveness of Greek industry during the last twenty years to investigate the causes of the manufacturing industry decline. More specifically, based on the updated data of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) covering the period 1995 - 2013, the evolution of manufacturing economic fundamentals (investments, value added, employment, etc.), the export performance and evolution of competitiveness are analyzed. By competitiveness we mean measurable factors, i.e. labor costs per unit of product and labor productivity in manufacturing.