Slow recovery for employment rates
Employment in Greece is recovering at a slow but steady rate, with the increase in part-time employment since 2011 contributing toward the gradual decline in the jobless rates, according to a report published by the ICAP Group.
The survey notes that, after a period of extended recession, the Greek economy showed some weak signs of recovery in 2017, which led to the unemployment rate dropping to 21.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, from 23.3 percent in the same period last year.
Therefore, in the final quarter of each of the last three years (2015-17), the shifts reflected in employment figures have been positive even though the gap with pre-crisis levels remains considerable. In Q4 of 2017 employment recorded an increase of 2.4 percent on an annual basis, while due to the seasonal features of sectors such as tourism, the number of people employed declined by 2.3 percent from the previous quarter.
At the end of 2017 the number of people in work came to 3.73 million, while the average number of people employed last year posted a 2.1 percent rise from 2016. In the last quarter of 2017 the employed amounted to 40.8 percent of the working age population.
