In Pictures

In pictures: Greek shipyard in decline

The collapse of Greece’s ship repair and shipbuilding industry has left four in ten jobless in one municipality.

Spyros Germenis, an unemployed turner, waits for work at the Chop Chop cafe on the western outskirts of Athens. "I(***)m scouring the mountains for gold sovereigns," he says with gallows humour.

In Perama, half an hour’s drive from the centre of Athens, Greece’s capital, the ship repair and shipbuilding industry has fallen upon hard times. Shipbuilding is a major industry in Greece: by tonnage, Greeks own 16 per cent of the world’s merchant fleet, more than any other country.

Now, unemployment rates run as high as 40 per cent in Perama, and in the ship repair and shipbuilding industry more than 90 per cent are jobless.

Al Jazeera’s John Psaropoulos takes a look at this phenomenon in pictures.

A worker hydroblasts barnacles off the hull of a ferry at the Frantzis Shipyards in Perama. Maintenance on large ships is especially sought after.

A union picket line outside the Halkitis Shipyards prevents non-union workers from entering for a day.

An old man casts in the Salamis strait off the Perama shore, where the Greeks won their greatest ever naval victory, the Battle of Salamis, two and a half millennia ago. These shores are currently witnessing the sinking of Greece(***)s shipbuilding industry.

The town of Perama is seen behind its shoreline of shipyards. Mayor Pantelis Zoumboulis dreams of building a mountaintop recreational park to create jobs in tourism.

Shipyard owner Vasilis Halkitis stands in front of a crane. "There are Greek shipowners who want to come here and won(***)t because of the unions," he says.

Workers at the Halkitis Shipyards attach a massive tugboat propeller after cleaning it.

A worker touches up the varnish on a private yacht. Most of the work coming into Perama these days consists of repairs to private vessels.