Greek Economy Is On The Mend, But Shipbuilding -- One Its Oldest Industries -- Is In Final Collapse

With its local shipyards now resembling ghost towns, Perama and nearby Eleusis and Skaramagas, home to the biggest shipyards in the eastern Mediterranean, have borne the brunt of a steep economic downturn that hit Greece’s shipping industry even before the real trouble began for the country in 2010. That downturn prompted shippers to look elsewhere for cheaper vessels. Dejected by long-term unemployment, most shipyard workers in Perama are now statistically classified as “inactive” job seekers belonging to “income-less households.”