This article presents the results of a survey of 100 illegal Bulgarian immigrants living it the Athens area of Greece. The results indicate that that the Bulgarian illegal immigrants tend to take lower level jobs in the Greek labour market, some of however, are jobs for which Greeks compete. Entry into Greece is made legally via visas obtained in Bulgaria. Immigrants tend to be treated well and make friends with locals. Their wage levels are considerably below those of comparable Greeks and they are not insured.
Illegal immigrants seem to be tolerated by the authorities as well as by locals .
They tend to send considerable remittances to their home country , but are not particularly reliant on fellow immigrant networks for their labour market movements. The Greek unemployment rate rose from 2 per cent in the 1960s to 9-10 per cent in the 1990s. This reflected the increase in female participation rate, the slowdown in growth, the restructuring of production, and the increased mismatch between jobs and job seekers, but the most crucial factor was the persistence of real wage aspirations. In this paper we examine the characteristics and trends of unemployment in Greece and make comparisons with other countries. In addition to a number of standard explanations we emphasise the role of labour market institutions and public sector hiring policy as two factors contributing to the rise of unemployment in Greece.