Young jobless rise in Cyprus

Youth unemployment in Cyprus, which concerns people aged between 15 and 29 years old, rose to 14.2% last year from 13.3% in 2020, remaining above the EU average of 13% in 2021, according to data released by Eurostat, the statistical service of the European Union.

Overall unemployment in Cyprus dipped slightly to 7.5% in 2021, remaining a little higher than the EU average. In 2020, overall unemployment in the country stood at 7.6%.

The Covid-19 crisis and its associated lockdown measures disproportionately impacted young people in terms of unemployment, especially in 2020, when the youth jobless rate in the European Union rose 1.4 percentage points while the overall unemployment rate increased by 0.4 percentage points.

In fact, youth unemployment decreased slightly more in 2021 (-0.3 percentage points compared with 2020) than the overall unemployment rate (-0.1 percentage points, from 7.1% in 2020 to 7.0% in 2021).

Excluding the European Union regions for which the data refer to 2019 (e.g. most regions of Germany), the lowest youth unemployment rates in 2021 were recorded in the eastern regions of the EU.