Greece Goes All In On Tech — Now It Needs Skilled Workers
- Microsoft, Google among technology giants flocking to Greece
- A booming tech sector is convincing Greek ex-pats to move home
When Epameinondas Gerolimatos, a soft-spoken 41-year-old, got his degree in economics in 2003, he assumed, like many other Greeks, that a career in banking would mean long-term job security. The 2010 financial crisis and its decade-long fallout rattled his country’s faith in the industry, but Gerolimatos is again part of a sector that is shaping up to become one of Greece’s most influential – tech.
After signing up for a national unemployment registry, in May Gerolimatos was offered a spot in a free certificate program run by Microsoft. A month later, he was one of 25 out of 150 to pass his course, which is part of an effort to train 100,000 would-be specialists in information technology by the end of 2025. Three months and yet another Microsoft certificate program later, Gerolimatos was weighing job offers, eventually becoming a security engineer at a global accounting firm.