Up to 30,000 people from socially vulnerable groups will be offered part-time employment by the public sector for up to two years under a new bill presented by the government yesterday.

Interior Minister Costas Skandalidis stressed that people given such jobs had no prospect of fulfilling the perennial Greek dream of becoming full-time civil servants. “We are not cutting public sector jobs,” he told a press conference. “This will be nothing more than supplementary employment that by no means will confer any right regarding permanent civil service jobs.”

The jobs on offer will be in the social services — such as home care for the elderly, guarding schools, helping with the social integration of immigrants — as well as in public information bureaus, environmental, cultural or sports programs.

Priority will be given to the long-term unemployed, jobless people close to retirement age, mothers with young children and handicapped people.

Opposition New Democracy denounced the bill as a vote-grabbing exercise ahead of next year’s elections.