Mitsotakis slammed for house candles worth €20,000 - more than the average YEARLY salary

Kyriakos Mitsotakis

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was slammed on social media on Wednesday night for delivering a message to the nation from his home, with candles worth €20,000 seen in the background.

Twitter noticed a set of expensive candlesticks that were in the back of the library behind the prime minister, with what Olympia described as a "whole tsunami of bitter comments" following afterwards.

One Twitter user said: "Koulis describes himself as a protector of the poor by displaying candlesticks worth €20,000. Monsters."

https://twitter.com/Marka2_/status/1504209019468193795

"9 euros per month, half a can of sermons."

"He came out a little unshaven to show that he is ... afflicted with the coronavirus."

"Dude, do you have 2 euros to get a cheese pie?"

"The other one did a speech with €20,000 candlesticks behind him."

According to the Greek Primary Social Security Fund, the average wage in Greece in 2021 for full-time workers in the private sector is €1,182.39 per month and €51.28 per day.

The data were collected from nearly 251,000 companies with 2.054 million employees. According to international analytical agencies, Greek workers receive 1,060.45 euros per month.

Note: According to a report on employment and the Greek economy by the GSEE Labor Institute, 571,000 Greeks (about 1/5 of private sector workers) are paid less than €500 per month and 251,000 employees are paid less than €250.

The official minimum wage in Greece in 2021 is 650 euros per month. The rate is based on 14 payments per year.

For the standard 12 payments, Greece's minimum wage increases to 758.33 euros per month. Greek workers receive a daily minimum of 29.04 euros.

The annual income is 9,100 euros, putting into perspective how astronomically expensive the candles are.

Meanwhile, Greek unemployment rate fell to 12.8% in January 2022 from 16.2% in the same month last year, but remained unchanged from December 2021, Hellenic Statistical Authority said on Wednesday.

More specifically, the number of unemployed people totaled 587,152, down 12,563 from January 2021 (-17.4%) and down 7,100 from December 2021 (-1.2%).

The unemployment rate among women was 16.9%, from 19.8% in January 2021, while among men it fell to 9.6% from 13.3%, respectively.

The unemployment rate in the 15-24 age group was 32.6% in January 2022 from 45.2% in January 2021 and fell to 11.9% from 14.6%, respectively in the 25-74 group.

The number of employed people totaled 3,995,622 in January, up 8.5% from January 2021, but down 1.7% from December 2021.

READ MORE: Finance Minister Staikouras: Greece will repay final IMF loans by March, surplus by 2023.

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