WASHINGTON: Greek unemployment eased further to 21 pct of the workforce in July, from 23.4 pct in the same month last year and from an upwardly revised rate of 21.2 pct in June 2017, the Hellenic Statistical Authority said on Thursday. The statistics service, in a monthly report, said the number of unemployed people totaled 1,009,610 in July, down 119,010 since July 2016 (a decline of 10.5 pct) and down 12,661 compared with June 2017 (a decline of 1.2 pct). The number of employed people totaled 3,796,318, up 93,392 from July 2016 (an increase of 2.5 pct) and up 13,283 from June 2017 (an increase of 0.4 pct).
The unemployment rate among women was 25.3 pct in July from 28 pct in July 2016, while among men it fell to 17.5 pct from 19.6 pct, respectively. The 15-24 age group recorded the highest unemploment rate (42.8 pct from 43.2 pct in July 2016), followed by the 25-34 age group (26.1 pct from 29.7 pct), the 35-44 age group (18.8 pct from 20.4 pct), the 45-54 age group (16.6 pct from 19.3 pct), the 55-64 age group (18.1 pct from 18.4 pct) and the 65-74 age group (11.6 pct from 13.3 pct). Among the country’s regions, Epirus-Western Macedonia recorded the highest unemployment rates (27.3 pct in July from 26.9 pct in July last year), followed by Macedonia-Thrace (22.2 pct from 23.9 pct), Attica (21.3 pct from 23.1 pct), Thessaly-Central Greece (20.7 pct from 24.6 pct), Peloponnese-Western Greece-Ionian Islands (20.3 pct from 23.4 pct), Crete (16.4 pct from 22.3 pct) and the Aegean (16.3 pct from 18.9 pct).
