Greek jobless rate drops

The Hellenic Statistical Authority released new unemployment figures on Thursday, showing the Greek unemployment rate fell to 16.9% of the workforce in the second quarter of 2019, from 19.2% in the first quarter and 19% in the same period last year.

According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority, the number of unemployed people totalled 805,047 in the second quarter, down 11.2% from the previous quarter and down 11.1% compared with the same period last year. However, a total of 570,000 unemployed (70.8% of total) were long-term unemployed and 20.8% of unemployed were not registered unemployed. The percentage of unemployed receiving unemployment benefit was 11.0%.

The number of employed people was 3,956,424 and employment rose 3.7% from the previous quarter and 2.5% compared with the same period in 2018. Part-time employment accounted for 9.1% of total employment.

The unemployment rate among women was 20.9% from 13.7% among men. The 15-19 age group recorded the highest unemployment rate (41.5%), followed by the 20-24 group (32.7%), the 25-29 group (24.6%), the 30-44 age group (16.6%), the 45-64 age group (13.8%) and the above 65 age group (10%).

Among the country's regions, West Macedonia (24.6%) recorded the highest unemployment rate, followed by Western Greece (23.9%), Central Macedonia (19.6%), Thessaly (17.9%), Attica (17.2%), the Northern Aegean (17.1%), Epirus (16%), Eastern Macedonia-Thrace (15.9%), Central Greece (15.6%), the Peloponnese (12.2%), the Ionian Islands (11.9%), Crete (9.4%) and the South Aegean (8.1 %).