Greek unemployment drops to 24.2 percent in February

Greece’s jobless rate eased to 24.2 percent in February from 24.4 percent in the previous month, statistics agency ELSTAT said on Thursday.

The number of officially unemployed reached 1.158 million people. Hardest hit were young people aged 15 to 24 years though their jobless rate dropped to 51.4 percent from 51.8 percent in the same month a year earlier.

February’s reading, based on seasonally adjusted data, was the lowest since May 2012 when unemployment stood at 24.1 percent. The jobless rate hit a record high of 27.9 percent in September 2013.

Unemployment has come down from record highs but remains more than double the eurozone’s average of 10.2 percent in March.

Greece’s economy expanded slightly in the last three months of 2015 as national output grew 0.1 percent quarter-on-quarter, driven by private consumption and investment. It shrank 0.3 percent in the year as a whole.

Source:ekathimerini.com