Galery

1

One in every three people at the working age of up to 24 years can not find job. According to official data announced by the National Statistics Institute, unemployment in Greece is highest among women and youth. Experts speak of unprecedented high levels of unemployment in Greece in 2010 in decades. The number of unemployed people exceeded 684,000.

The percentage of young unemployed exceeded 34% in October last year. For comparison, it was about 27.5% for the same period in 2009. Employment of the fairer sex is also low. The percentage of unemployed women in October 2009 was 13.7%. It rose to 17.6% in the same month the following year. Unemployment of men has increased from 7.1% to 10.6% for the same period, October 2009-2010. Alarming are the data on increased unemployment among people of productive age between 25 and 34 years as it increased from 12.6% to 18.3%. The unemployment rate of men and women at the age between 35 and 44 years is high too. The employment has also declined there and the percentage of unemployed in this age group is 11.5%.

Over 192,000 Greeks are unemployed and are currently queuing to labour offices. Over 56 thousand people of them lost their jobs in just one month between September and October 2010. The worst is the situation in northern Greece and especially in western Macedonia where one in five people is unemployed. The lowest unemployment is registered on the islands in the southern Aegean Sea.
 
The expectations for 2011 are even worse as experts forecast the unemployed people to become more than 800,000 by the end of the year or about 15% of the workforce in the country will not have job. The data of the union of Greek workers (GSEE) suggest that this figure could be even higher and exceed one million people or over 22%. The analysis of the polling company Manpower, cited by Mega TV, only confirms the forecast of the dark days awaiting the Greek labour market. According to the survey, 23% of the companies that took part in the inquiry said they plan staff cuts in the first three months of this year.

The survey was conducted among 750 Greek companies operating in nine major sectors of the economy and shows that while the number of unemployed continues to rise, jobs in the country decrease. According to data from the same survey published in the online edition Agelofors, opportunities to find jobs in tourism fell by 34%. Employment opportunities in production and commerce decreased by 27% and 20% respectively. Jobs in the financial and insurance sectors as well as in construction fell by about 13%.

The president of the Institute for Employment at the Greek unions Savas Robolis noted that the government should take care to limit the recession. At the same time, it should create conditions for increasing public and private investment that will open up new jobs. Robolis did not fail to note that maintaining high levels of unemployment over the next few years will deprive the social security system of important resources. He gave the example that 630 thousand unemployed people won’t pay approximately 6.5 billion euros to social security funds or around 2.8% of GDP annually.