The main power utility PPC’s severance pay of 15,000 euros offered to employees agreeing to depart through the corporation’s voluntary exit plan will now also be made available to staff members who have been employed at the company for at least 25 years, not just older personnel eligible aged at least 62 and eligible for retirement, PPC’s administration has decided at a board meeting.

The measure, part of a PPC personnel restructuring plan prepared by the consulting firm McKinsey that includes more flexible labor terms for new and outgoing employees, incentives and staff redistribution, aims to lower the average age of the power utility’s workforce, currently numbering approximately 10,000, to less than 50, the current average age.

So far, the voluntary exit plan has been accepted by 273 employees at two lignite-fired power stations, Megalopoli and Melit, included in PPC’s bailout-required disinvestment of lignite units, as well as a further 220 employees at other divisions and units.

It remains to be seen if PPC will succeed in reducing its payroll by approximately 4,000 employees for cost savings of 330 million euros, as McKinsey has advised in its business plan for the Greek power utility.

As part of the corporation’s wider cost-reduction measures, the PPC board has also decided to reduce a food allowance offered to employees to 3.40 euros per day from its previous level of 6 euros per day over the next three years.