Purpose Over the past year, the widespread pandemic has changed people’s lifestyles around the world. Educational services providers had to adapt to this new reality. Therefore, distance learning has been widely used by universities all over the world, even though some institutions were not prepared for this sudden change to their service provision. As such distance learning methods, while they are not new in the academic community, were massively introduced and redesigned to help students’ attend lectures and acquire new knowledge. The introduction of new technologies has further helped students’ and teaching staff speed up the process and improve methods of teaching and learning, including access to educational material, virtual classes and live meetings. The aim of this paper is to tap on the new form of higher education provision in the pandemic economy; more specifically, the authors aim to assess the impact of this change on university students’ and investigate the effect of attitudes towards distance learning as a drive of university students’ decision-making. Design/methodology/approach Distance learning has been widely used by Greek universities, even though some institutions were not prepared for this sudden change to their teaching methods. To assess the impact of this change on university students, research was conducted on 1,550 students’ at Democritus University of Thrace, Greece, and a two-step cluster analysis was conducted to reveal three equally sized clusters, namely, technology mature, technology conservatives and sceptics of e-learning. Findings The results reveal that although students’ found distance learning implementation the satisfactory, most of them are sceptical about the future of distance learning methods. Their main objections focus on the way distance learning is practiced. They also shared their objections regarding the future of e-learning and online exams. Originality/value This study is based on the extant pros and cons of distance learning and provides new knowledge on students’ attitudes towards distance learning. This where the manuscript offers value, as to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the post COVID-19 era that offers new empirical data relating to attitudes towards online services provision in the higher education sector.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on unemployment in Greece. The outbreak of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020 was an unprecedented phenomenon for the governments of all states, which, with the increase in cases, were called to take measures to limit the spread of the virus, which necessarily limited freedoms but also caused changes in lifestyle and the activities of people but also in the operation of businesses resulting in the disruption of labor relations (Francis-Devine et al., 2022). A large percentage of businesses were forced to suspend their operations and, in many countries, total lockdowns of short or longer duration were imposed. Some countries, of course, have chosen to act differently by imposing smaller local lockdowns or even none. In this paper, we will deal with the case of Greece, which acted completely differently, especially during the first period of the outbreak of the pandemic, with the first imposing a total lockdown from the appearance of the very first cases of the pandemic (Goniewicz et al., 2020). Using panel data, we will assess the interaction and correlation of the unemployment rate with a range of variables, such as the number of cases, inflation, gross domestic product (GDP) and consumer price index, to assess whether and to what extent the spread of the virus ultimately affected the rate of unemployment in these two countries.

The present research effort attempts to achieve the detection of issues involved in the exercise of public/national social policy in the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace in Greece. The data was collected in May–October 2019, through the Community Centers of the social services of the region’s municipalities. The main method of analysis was clustering (two-step cluster analysis). The survey will also attempt to monitor the coverage of the needs not only of vulnerable population groups but also of the general population in need of social policy services (Center for Healthy Aging, 2004). Social welfare in the countries of Southern Europe appears, as far as funding is concerned, as a neglected pillar of social protection. It is a commitment of the state to meet the needs of all population groups. These needs are not standardized, do not have a defined problem framework and have a high degree of differentiation. New social risks cannot be dealt with by passive forms of intervention. These risks create enough insecurity and uncertainty in maintaining a minimum level of decent living (Velte, 2023). The exercise of social policy means all statutory measures and applied policies or informal practices aimed at preventing and addressing the needs not only of vulnerable population groups but also of the general population of the territory, both at the reception stage with the state services and at the stage of integration or “rehabilitation” of individuals.