Greek unemployment rate at 18.5 pct in January, Eurostat finds

Greece’s unemployment rate was 18.5 percent in January, slightly up from 18.4 percent in December, yet down from 20.6 percent in January 2018, Eurostat said in a report released Tuesday.

The number of unemployed people in Greece totaled 873,000 in January. The unemployment rate among men stood at 14.5 percent and among women at 23.6 percent. The unemployment rate among young people (aged up to 25 years old) was 39.7 percent in January, just down from 39.8 percent in December.

In the eurozone, the unemployment rate was 7.7 percent in March from 7.8 percent in February and 8.5 percent in March last year. Meanwhile, in the European Union the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent in March from 6.5 percent in February and 7 percent in March 2018. The number of unemployed people in the eurozone was 12.6 million in March, while in the EU it totaled 15.9 million.

Greece (18.5 percent in January), Spain (14 percent) and Italy (10.2 percent) featured the highest unemployment rates in the EU, while the Czech Republic (1.9 percent) and Germany (3.2 percent) had the lowest rates. [ANA-MPA]