Posted 25 September 2007 - 03:14 PM
Hi Willtam,
Glad to hear that you had a great holiday here and, with what I read in the papers about the UK today, I am not surprised that you want to live here.
However, living and working here is far different from being on holiday. In fact working here is far different from working in the UK. If you are fluent in Greek, it is possible to get a job outside the tourist industry but you should remember that any vacancies are offered first to relatives, then to friends, then to Greeks and lastly to immigrants. You also need to remember that, whatever the EU rules say, any British qualifications will not be recognised, so that if you are a qualified plumber you will probably end up working as an assistant to a Greek plumber!
Many Cretans struggle to find employment for 12 months of the year. Many work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week from May to October in the tourist industry and during the winter months tend and harvest their olive crop. Jobs which provide all year round employment, like bus drivers and postmen, are highly sought after! The government owned industries, like electricity and telephone companies, as well as banks, will only employ Greek nationals.
What does this leave outside of the tourist industry? Well there are a lot of British/Greek owned estate agents and developers, some would say too many, and you may be able to find employment there or as a builders labourer, although the Albanians seem to have the labouring market sewn up.
You say that you would like to work with animals. You may be able to get a job as a goatherd, provided that the owner does not have an elderly relative who needs a job although I doubt that you would be able to live on the money offered! Perhaps you could get a job with a vet or animal charity, I don't know.
I am sorry if this sounds bleak, but as I said, many Cretans struggle to work for twelve months a year. Perhaps you should come out here for say a month and see if you could get a job?
Personally, if I had to work (I am retired) I would not come to Crete. The weather is too hot, the working hours are too long and the pay is too little! My personal choice would be Vancouver, Canada which is consistantly voted among the top 3 places to live in the world and where employment is easy to find and the standard of living is among to highest in the world.
John
Cornwall - Great at any time of the year.
