Alkis Konstantinidis / EPA

An empty billboard along the main road that encircles the city of Athens, April 3.

Alkis Konstantinidis / EPA

Empty billboards line a suburban street of Thessaloniki, Greece, March 3.

Orestis Panagiotou / EPA

Empty billboards on a main traffic street of Athens, Greece, March 27.

Alkis Konstantinidis / EPA

An empty advertising billboard int the suburbs of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, March 3.

By European PressPhoto Agency -- Just as ancient temples remind humanity of the once great Greek Empire, empty billboards represent Greece’s current situation. They can now be easily found in Greece’s capital, Athens. They are ragged and empty, or else carrying posters so old that the sun has bleached them illegible. 

At the moment, it is not known if there are plans to remove them so they remain, in a way, monuments of the past, and the message is the absence of message. 

As turnover in retail trade has dropped by 54.6 per cent since 2009, the advertising companies that own the billboards have suffered greatly from the economic crisis, and in their attempts to reduce operational costs, have slashed their advertising expenses. Data of the Hellenic Statistical Authority show that in the first six months of 2012, the reduction in advertising expenses in total dropped by 29.6 per cent compared to the same period in 2011, a year in which turnover had already been reduced by 15.5 per cent in comparison to 2010. Thousands of employees in the sector are among the 26.5 per cent of the Greeks who are unemployed, while those who are still employed are experiencing harrowing labor conditions, often without complaint, as advertising is one of those sectors that is not represented by its own union.

Editor's note: Photos were taken in March and April, but made available to NBC News today.

Mike Groll / AP

Occupy Albany member Tom Allocco of Albany, N.Y., holds a Walmart smiley face while delivering a bag of fake money to Sen. Jeffrey Klein's office at the Capitol on April 15, 2013, in Albany. Several labor unions claim campaign contributions by Walmart prompted the unusual provision of a subsidy for employers faced with a higher minimum wage in New York.

NBC News reports:

Due to the lingering effects of the Great Recession, the Hollywood image of the care-free, freckle-faced, teenage hamburger flipper is no longer the norm. Only 16 percent of fast food industry jobs now go to teens, down from 25 percent a decade ago.

Many of the older workers are better educated, too. More than 42 percent of restaurant and fast-food employees over the age of 25 have at least some college education, including 753,000 with a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Related coverage: In Plain Sight, Poverty in America

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Protesters rally against an EU bailout deal in front of the Cyprus parliament in Nicosia on March 18.

Patrick Baz / AFP - Getty Images

Cypriots show their palms reading "No" during a protest against an EU bailout deal outside the parliament in Nicosia on March 18. Cyprus's parliament has postponed until Tuesday a session to vote on the bailout deal that slaps a levy on all Cypriot bank savings, as negotiators scrambled to soften the blow for small deposit holders.

Yiannis Kourtoglou / AFP - Getty Images

A man holds a banner against German Chancellor Angela Merkel's call for Cyprus to follow economic reforms.

By John W. Schoen, NBC News

The explosive backlash to the latest European bailout – this one for tiny Cyprus – will have limited impact on U.S. consumers, businesses and investors.

But the aftershocks are a potent reminder than the ongoing European crisis – relatively dormant in recent months – is far from over.

The latest $13 billion chapter in the Europe’s efforts to reverse the economic free fall of its most heavily indebted members came with a nasty, surprise kicker. Read full story.

Patrick Baz / AFP - Getty Images

Cypriots protest outside the parliament building in Nicosia, on March 18.

Yorgos Karahalis / Reuters

Protesters shout slogans during an anti-bailout rally outside the parliament in Nicosia on March 18.

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Protesting Goodyear workers chant slogans in front of the company's French headquarters in Rueil-Malmaison on March 7, 2013. Goodyear announced in January 2013 that it would close a factory in Amiens, northern France that employs 1,250 people by the end of 2014.

Jacky Naegelen / Reuters

French CRS riot police stand guard in front of tire maker Goodyear Dunlop France headquarters during a demonstration against job cuts in Rueil Malmaison, March 7, 2013.

Jacky Naegelen / Reuters

Protestors scuffle with French CRS riot police in front of Goodyear Dunlop France headquarters during a demonstration against job cuts in Rueil Malmaison, France, March 7, 2013.

Remy De La Mauviniere / AP

Goodyear employees scuffle with riot policemen during a demonstration against layoffs in front of Goodyear headquarters in Rueil Malmaison, west of Paris, March 7, 2013.

Lionel Bonaventure / AFP - Getty Images

A protesting Goodyear France worker faces riot police in the western Paris suburb of Rueil-Malmaison on March 7, 2013 during a board meeting.

Remy De La Mauviniere / AP

Riot policemen protect themselves during a demonstration Goodyear employees, at the Goodyear headquarters in Rueil Malmaison, March 7, 2013.

AP reports: Burning the very fruit of their labor, workers from Goodyear clashed with police outside the tire-maker's French headquarters Thursday in a last-ditch attempt to save their jobs.

Goodyear has been trying to restructure or close its plant in northern France for five years in the face of a shrinking European car market. The workers say Goodyear wants to shift the work to China, where tires can be made more cheaply and which is closer to booming markets. Full story

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter, CEO of Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG bank, serves a customer at the counter of the bank in Gammesfeld, Baden-Wuerttemberg. Things do not seem to have changed much since the bank was founded in 1890.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter works with an old adding machine. The bank is not connected to a database system, there are no cash machines and its customer base consists only of residents of the town of Gammesfeld, which has a population of around 510.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Fritz Vogt, 82, who used to run the bank and still helps out with paperwork, writes into a savings book. During his time at the bank he rejected the idea of IT, preferring his trusty fountain pen, and now eyes the 'new' computer with its floppy disks warily.

By Victoria Bryan, Reuters

Peter Breiter, 41, is an unusual banker. Not for him the big bonuses, complicated financial instruments and multi-million deals of Wall Street lore.

He is happy instead writing transaction slips out by hand for the 500 inhabitants of the tiny southern German village of Gammesfeld.

The Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG cooperative bank is one of the country's 10 smallest banks by deposits and is the only one to be run by just one member of staff.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter rolls euro coins in paper.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter mops the floor in the waiting room of the bank.

A typical day's work for Breiter involves providing villagers with cash for their day-to-day needs and arranging small loans for local businesses. Not to mention cleaning the one-story building that houses the bank, which is 200 meters from his own front door.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter holds the floppy disks he uses now that the bank has a computer.

Moving from a bigger bank, where it was all "sell, sell, sell," Gammesfeld-born Breiter says taking up this job in 2008 was the best decision he ever made.

The advertisement required someone to work by hand, without computers. The typewriter and the adding machine bear the signs of constant use, although Breiter, in his standard work outfit of jeans and a sweater, does now have a computer.

"It's so much fun," Breiter, a keen mathematician, says as he deals with a steady stream of lunchtime customers. He knows his customers by name and regularly offers advice on jobs, relationship and money woes.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

Peter Breiter, right, welcomes customer Mandes Rueger, 30, at the counter of the bank. Rueger, an insurance salesman, comes in around twice a week to use the bank.

Raiffeisen Gammesfeld restricts its business to traditional retail banking --  no credit cards, shares, funds or even online banking. Annual profits are stable at around 40,000 euros ($54,000) and the biggest loan it ever made was for 650,000 euros ($875,000).

Breiter said the financial crisis prompted interest in his bank from all over Germany: "One person rang up five times asking for a 4 million euro loan, but I had to refuse because he wasn't from Gammesfeld!" Read the full story.

Photographer's blog: Lisi Niesner describes her visit to Germany's one-man bank

EDITOR'S NOTE: Images taken on Jan. 29, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Lisi Niesner / Reuters

A Raiffeisen Gammesfeld eG bank stamp.

Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP - Getty Images

People reach out for a bag of oranges during a free distribution of fruit and vegetables by Greek farmers outside the Agriculture Ministry in Athens, part of a farmers' protest against high production costs on Feb. 6, 2013.

John Kolesidis / Reuters

Athens residents reach out to take fruit and vegetables distributed for free by farmers.

Reuters reports — Hundreds of Greeks scuffled for free vegetables handed out by farmers on Wednesday, leaving one man trampled and injured, and prompting an outcry over the growing desperation created by economic crisis.

Startling images of Greeks struggling to seize bags of tomatoes and leeks thrown from a truck dominated Greek television, triggering a bout of soul-searching over the new depths of poverty in the debt-laden country.

"These images make me angry. Angry for a proud people who have no food to eat, who can't afford to keep warm, who can't make ends meet," said Kostas Barkas, a lawmaker from the leftist Syriza party. Read the full story.

Petros Karadjias / AP

A bird is entangled in a net used by poachers to trap migrating songbirds in the Larnaca district of Cyprus. Small birds, called ambelopoulia in Greek, are considered a delicacy in Cyprus, and poachers supply a lucrative market. 

Petros Karadjias / AP

A man tries to free a bird caught on a branch covered with a sticky substance that poachers in Cyprus use to trap songbirds in his orchard in the Larnaca district.

Petros Karadjias / AP

Served whole, either boiled or pickled, the fatty birds are such an ugly sight on a plate that outsiders find it hard to fathom how there could be any profit to be made from them. For many Cypriots, however, the tangy-sweet taste of the birds is pure bliss.

By Menelaos Hadjicostis, The Associated Press — It's just before first light and the bird-catcher strings nets among the orange, pomegranate, fig and carob trees in his orchard. The sound of chirping emanates from inside a massive carob — a trick sent from speakers to attract tiny songbirds. By mid-morning, the man disentangles about a half-dozen blackcaps, snaps their necks with his teeth and drops them in a bucket.

For centuries, the migratory songbirds have been a prized delicacy among Cypriots. They are also an illegal one, as entry into the European Union forced Cyprus to ban the tradition of catching the creatures, some endangered, in nets or on sticks slathered with a glue-like substance.

Now economic crisis is luring many out-of-work Cypriots back into the centuries-old trade. They risk stiff fines and even jail time by supplying an underground market for the tiny songbirds illicitly served up in the country's tavernas — but they say it's their only way to make ends meet. Read the full story.

Editor's note: Images taken on Nov. 3, 2012 and made available to NBC News today.

Petros Karadjias / AP

A man, who didn't want to be identified because he is breaking the law by poaching, releases a bird that was trapped in a net in his orchard in the Larnaca district.

Related:

The sound of no birds singing: Jonathan Franzen discusses the killing of songbirds in a New Yorker podcast

Killer outdoor cats slay billions of birds, small mammals yearly

Mystery of how homing pigeons find home solved

Mary Calvert / Reuters

Unidentified aides deliver pizza to House Democrats in a conference room around the hallway from the office of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 1.

Charles Dharapak / AP

A Marine sentry stands guard, indicating that President Obama is working in the West Wing of the White House, as discussions regarding the fiscal cliff continue on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 1.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., confer as they leave a closed-door meeting on the "fiscal cliff" bill passed by the Senate Monday night on Jan. 1.

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., enters a Republican caucus meeting to discuss the terms of the fiscal cliff deal at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan 1.

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

Republican House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chats with Aaron Schock, R-Ill., at the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 1.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., arrives for a House Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss the legislation that will blunt the effects of the "fiscal cliff" before a rare New Year's Day session in Washington.

• GOP seeks path forward in House for fiscal deal
• Despite last-minute deal, more political drama likely on the way

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) leaves the Senate chamber and heads to a meeting with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill, Dec. 30, in Washington, D.C. The House and Senate are both in session today to deal with the looming 'fiscal cliff'.

Democrats said that Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Ky., are insisting that a deal to resolve the fiscal cliff include what is known as "chained CPI" -- a change in how Social Security benefits are calculated to increase over time. 

Just before a self-imposed deadline at which Senate leaders were set to brief their respective caucuses about a prospective deal, negotiations toward a scaled-back agreement to avoid the onset of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts on Jan. 1 appeared on the verge of breakdown.

-- Reported by Michael O'Brien, NBC News

Read the full story

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