Greek Youth Unemployment Hits 55% as Labour Market Buckles

Greece's youth unemployment rate jumped to 55.1% in July as the country continues to suffer from the economic crisis.

According to the Greek Statistical Authority Elstat, the agency revealed that the youth unemployment rate shot up in July 2013, up from 54.9% in July 2012 and an increase from 42.6% in July 2011.

The body also found that the total amount of Greek people in unemployment was 27.6% in July, a hike from 25 % in July 2012.

The total number of employed citizens during July 2013 was estimated at 3,610,549 people, according to Elstat.

The research also demonstrated that the number of employed decreased by 136,714 persons compared with July 2012, a decrease of 3.6%.

But the number of unemployed increased by 126,451 persons, compared with July 2012 (a 10.1% increase) and 729 persons compared to June 2013 (a 0.1% increase).

The Economically Inactive

In contrast, the total number of jobless people stood at 1,374,054, while the economically inactive population amounted to 3,375,636 people.

The economically inactive is a group that are not in work and do not meet the internationally agreed definition of unemployment and who have not actively sought work in the last four weeks and/or are not available to start work in the next two weeks.

The economically inactive increased by 21,830 persons compared with July 2012, a 0.7 % increase, according to Elstat.

But, according to the European Union's statistics office's most recent research, Greek unemployment was at 27.9% in June 2013, up from 24.60% the year before.

The body also found that youth unemployment hit 61.50% in June 2013, an increase from 55.4% in June 2013.