Unemployment figures reveal a slightly improved picture in April
The jobless rate in Greece is showing signs of decline and employment appears to be growing, according to the latest figures of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), but unemployment remains far above that of all other European member-states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In April the jobless rate declined to 23.3 percent, from 23.7 percent in March and 25.3 percent in April 2015. The number of unemployed individuals came to 1,115,443, while the total number of people at work reached 3,676,880, up 3 percent from a year earlier.
OECD data show that employment is nine percentage points lower than where it was before the beginning of the financial crisis in Greece. At the end of 2015 the employment rate as a share of the work-able population came to 44.7 percent, compared with 53.7 percent in the last quarter of 2007.
The OECD expects that the rate will have rebounded to 46.8 percent by the last quarter of 2017, thereby remaining a long way from the pre-crisis level.
