ECB to take on 40 additional staff

(FRANKFURT) - The European Central Bank has agreed to take on 40 additional staff to ease the workload from the eurozone debt crisis, a spokesman said Tuesday, amid calls by unions for even more new hirings.

The ECB's executive board has given the green light to the hiring of 40 new staff, a spokesman told AFP, confirming a corresponding report in the daily Die Welt.

But IPSO, the only recognised union at the ECB and whose members account for more than 40 percent of staff, has said that will not be enough.

ECB president Mario Draghi already acknowledged back in July that the tasks facing the central bank staff had multiplied greatly as a result of the euro crisis and become "more difficult and psychologically demanding."

"It is no surprise that (staff) see themselves as overworked, and our assessment is exactly the same," Draghi said at the time, adding that the ECB was taking steps to alleviate that stress and the executive board had discussed a "very modest" increase in resources.

In a recent internal ECB staff poll, IPSO found that the bank's employees were suffering from stress and overwork, with 80.1 percent of staff complaining of a "heavy workload" at the moment and 74.4 percent of them saying it was a "permanent" situation.

The poll was carried out among 715 ECB staff on both permanent and temporary contracts.

The ECB employs a total workforce of 2,600, with 1,200 of those on permanent contracts.

In July, IPSO had said there was talk of taking on 50-60 new staff in core divisions over two or three years, but that was "only minimal" and a "complete review" of the situation was needed.