General information on the populations of migrants and minorities in Greece
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As in the rest of Southern Europe, the Greek experience of immigration is a very recent phenomenon. Immigration peaked in the early 1990s, with extensive clandestine arrivals, mainly from neighbouring Albania. The vast majority of immigrants in Greece remained undocumented until the first amnesty of 1997-98 and succeeding regularisation programmes in the 2000s. The 2001 Census recorded nearly 800,000 foreign nationals living in Greece, comprising 7.3 per cent of the total population: more than half are from Albania and another 16.2 per cent are from Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Estimations take this figure up to one million, counting also recent arrivals and ethnic Greek migrants (who are subject to different legal status). The majority of migrants work in construction, agriculture, manufacturing and various low or semi-skilled jobs (in tourism, catering, domestic services, etc.). Partly because of the exclusionary legal framework and partly due to the structural characteristics of the Greek labour market, the big bulk of migrant labour has been absorbed by the underground economy and informal employment remains widespread for large shares of migrant workers even after legal status is achieved. By mid-2003, about 580,000 immigrants were legalised (Fakiolas 2003).
