The number of registered unemployed people in Greece remained under the “psychological barrier” of one million in October 2017, according to figures released this week by Greece’s statistical authority (EL.STAT).
Although still very high, the figure eased to 20.7 percent, down more than three percentage points from the corresponding month in 2016 (23.3 percent).
The figure, however, does not take into account the number of jobless people who have stopped seeking employment, or, more ominously, the number of people leaving the country to seek employment opportunities abroad.
In absolute terms, the lower unemployment figure translates into approximately 123,000 less jobless people over the last 12-month period, in tandem with an increase in the number of employed up by 109,000 people.
EL.STAT employed seasonally adjusted data to revise previous figures for unemployment, whereby the figure for September 2017 was raised slightly to 20.8 percent from 20.5 percent.
