According to the analysis by Κόντης (2017), migrants represent something like 8% to 10% of the population in Greece during the last two decades, which is by no means higher than the majority of other EU member states. As Eurostat underlines, the number of immigrants per 1.000 inhabitants in Greece is not significantly higher than in most other EU member states.
Nevertheless, Greece presents a unique case in several other respects. For instance, while the population aged 15 to 64 years old across the EU-28 countries increased by 5 million between 2008 and 2017, Greece experienced a reduction in this age group by 210.000 even if the country remains one of the main entry points for African and Asian migrants to Europe. Furthermore, the workforce in Greece has decreased since 2009, a year before the economic crisis intensified, primarily due to the combined effects of an ageing population and a significant brain drain effect (Groutsis et al., 2020; Labrianidis & Sykas, 2021). In 2012, a decrease in the foreign population of the country was recorded for the first time since 1989 (Χαρίσης, 2017). Table 7 presents the population with non-Greek citizenship according to the Population Census surveys since 1971.
2 MIGRANT LABOUR IN THE GREEK GIG ECONOMY
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