Eurostat: Greek unemployment rate at 16.9 pct of the workforce in July

Greek unemployment rate fell to 16.9 pct of the workforce in July 2019 from 17.1 pct in June, Eurostat said in a report released here on Thursday. The EU executive's statistics agency said that Greece recorded the biggest decline in the unemployment rate in July in comparison with the same month last year (16.9 pct from 19.1 pct), with the number of unemployed totaling 797,000. The unemployment rate was 13.7 pct among men and 21 pct among women.

In the Eurozone, the unemployment rate was 7.5 pct in September, unchanged from August, but down from 8.0 pct in September last year. In the EU, the unemployment rate was 6.3 pct in September, unchanged from August, but down from 6.7 pct a year earlier. The number of unemployed people in the EU was 15.6 million of which 12.3 million in the Eurozone.

Greece (16.9 pct) and Spain (14.2 pct) recorded the highest unemployment rates in teh EU, while Czech Republic (2.1 pct) and Germany (3.1 pct) the lowest rates.

Unemployment among young people was 15.9 pct in September in the Eurozone and 14.5 pct in the EU. Greece (33.2 pct in the second quarter of 2019), Spain (32.8 pct) and Italy (28.7 pct) recorded the highest unemployment rates among young people and the lowest were recorded in Czech Republic (4.4 pct) and Germany (5.9 pct).