The dictatorship attempted to ease the tension due to accumulated economic problems, but without success. In the agricultural sector, delays grew in paying off interest due on debts and support prices were established for certain agricultural products, while full title deeds were given to refugee farmers for the land they were cultivating. At the same time, in 1938, a ministry of Co-operatives was established to organize the new political model of agricultural employment in Greece, which was now to be centralized and directed from above.
In the sector of paid employment the institution of union contracts, work by rotation, the restriction of the right to dismiss employees, the creation of new closed professions and other measures 'benefecial to the people' were instituted, aimed at the restriction of popular pressure and strike demonsrations against the Regime.
The attitude of the dictatorship in the sensitive field of industry was characterized by the same absolute practicality that had characterized all its actions. Their basic criterion was not the need to map out a long-term industrial policy but the application of a paternalistic policy following the Fascist models of other European countries.