Government marks decline in registered jobless
The number of unemployed people in Greece has dropped below 900,000 for the first time since 2011, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said on Thursday during his daily press briefing.
He also noted an increase in salaried employment in the private sector in April 2024, based on figures from the Ergani database on employment.
“A comparison of the figures for April this year and the same month last year shows that we had 9,273 more jobs,” Marinakis said, pointing out that the unemployment rate has dropped by nearly 8.4 percentage points since 2019, to its lowest level since 2009.
The figures also revealed a shift away from a market of primarily low-paid jobs, in which the biggest group of employees were those earning less than 700 euros a month, to a job market with better salaries, where the largest group of employees were those earning between €1,000 and €3,000 a month, he added. He noted that the percentage of employees earning under €700 had fallen to 18.1%.
The government’s aim for the future is to reduce unemployment to or below the EU average, he said, and to increase incomes, raising the minimum wage to €950 per month and the average wage to €1,500 by the end of its term.
