Greece’s jobless rate dropped to 18% in December from a downwardly-revised 18.3% in the previous month, data from the country’s statistics service ELSTAT showed on Thursday.
December’s unemployment rate was the lowest reading since July of 2011.
Seasonally-adjusted data showed the total number of unemployed at 851,556, with younger individuals aged up to 24 making up most of those figures.
Among younger people aged 15 to 24, the jobless rate fell to 39.5% from a level of 43.1% during the same month of 2017.
Greece’s overall jobless rate, which hit a record high of 27.8% in September of 2013, has been decreasing ever since that time, but it still remains the highest in the eurozone.
The Greek government expects unemployment to decline to 18.2% this year as the economy recovers, based on projections in the 2019 budget.
Greece’s economy shrank slightly in the period from October to December, after expanding for nine consecutive quarters.
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