As improvements go, it’s not much to write home about but Greece’s eye-watering unemployment rate crept down to 23.1 per cent in September from 23.3 per cent the month prior.
Figures from the country’s statistics agency revealed the small improvement in the jobless rate, which remains the highest in the 19-country eurozone. Over 1.1 million Greeks are still unemployed, according to Elstat, a fall from the 1.35m peak hit in 2013 but still nowhere near the 940k recorded in 2011 – the first year after the country’s international bailout.
Greece’s plight highlights the stark divergence between countries in the single currency area. Germany now boasts its lowest rate of post-reunification unemployment at just 4.1 per cent while the eurozone’s overall rate fell below 10 per cent for the first time since the financial crisis in September.
Athens’ EU creditors signed off on the first set of short-term debt relief measures for the country last week, a move which should help bring down the country’s debt-to-GDP by 20 percentage points over the next 40 years.
Read more: Greece lumbers at bottom of Europe’s jobs recovery
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