Greek unemployment fell to 20.8 pct in December

The statistics service, in a monthly report, said that the number of unemployed people totalled 989,199 in December 2017, down 127,352 compared with December 2016 (a decline of 11.4 pct) and down 6,979 compared with November 2017 (a decline of 0.7 pct).

The number of employed people totaled 3,760,399, up 107,687 from December 2016 (2.9 pct) and 8,378 compared with November 2017 (up 0.2 pct).

The unemployment rate among women was 25.8 pct in December (27.9 pct in December 2016) while among men it fell to 16.9 pct from 19.8 pct. The highest unemployment rate was recorded in the 15-24 age group (45 pct in December 2017 from 46.7 pct in 2016), followed by the 25-34 age group (25.9 pct from 29.6 pct), the 35-44 age group (18.7 pct from 20.2 pct), the 45-54 age group (16.2 pct from 18.7 pct), the 55-64 age group (16.9 pct from 19.9 pct) and the 65-74 age group (10.8 pct from 14.3 pct).

Among the country's regions, Epirus-Western Macedonia (25.8 pct in December 2017 from 27.5 pct in December 2016) recorded the highest unemployment rate, followed by the Peloponnese-Western Greece-Ionian Islands (21.7 pct from 24.4 pct), Macedonia-Thrace (21.1 pct from 23.7 pct) and Attica (21.1 pct from 23.1 pct). They were followed by the Aegean (20.5 pct from 19.8 pct), Thessaly-Central Greece (19.2 pct from 23.9 pct) and Crete (16 pct from 23.2 pct).

Source: APE-MPE