Greek Jobless Rate Hits Record 22.6%; Women, Youth, Hurt Most

The Greek unemployment lines are getting longer, with no end in sight as austerity measures take a brutal toll

ATHENS – Pro-austerity parties got bad news on June 14th, three days before the critical elections that could determine whether parties opposed to pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions win power and vow to end the punishing measures, as the country’s statistical service, ELSTAT, reported that the unemployment rate rose to a record 22.6 percent in the first quarter of the year, up 1.9 percent from the previous three-month reporting period.
This quarterly data was based on a bigger survey sample and provided detailed figures for each sector of the economy. ELSTAT said there were now officially more than 1.12 million people who were unemployed, with another 222,000 losing their jobs from January to May. The figures do not include another 500,000 whose benefits expired a year ago. To make matters worse for the jobless, New Democracy and PASOK agreed to terms that cut the unemployment benefits to less than $480 a month. The rate for those under 25 hit 52.7 percent while women were the hardest-hit sector, the figures showed.

The numbers represent people in private sector jobs who have lost their positions as a fallout of the economic crisis created by alternating New Democracy and PASOK administrations hiring hundreds of thousands of needless workers in return for votes. The government has so far refused to begin the layoffs of up to 150,000 public workers as promised, and none have been let go while the jobless rate in the private sector continues to swell each day.
Led by the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras, parties who blame the austerity measures imposed by a previous coalition of the New Democracy Conservatives and PASOK Socialists, were poised to make big gains in the elections, as they did in a first round of voting on May 6 in which they won 68 percent of the vote. While New Democracy finished first with only 18.8 percent, no party was able to gain enough votes to form a government and coalition talks collapsed, leading to another round.
Greece is surviving on a first bailout of $152 billion from the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) and waiting for a second, of $173 billion, to be disbursed after the elections. But the Troika has warned the money pipeline could be shut off and Greece forced out of the Eurozone of the 17 countries and back to the drachma if the next government reneges on the austerity measures and does not make another $15 billion in the same cuts that have worsened a deep recession and led to the closing of 1,000 businesses a week.
The new record is the highest quarterly unemployment rate since reports began 1998 and represented a jump in the jobless rate of 6.8 percent over the first quarter of 2011. The austerity measures began two years ago and Greeks have been protesting, striking and rioting to no avail. Tsipras said at first he would cancel the memorandum with the Troika, but after critics said that could stop the money flow and push Greece out of the Eurozone, he has changed his rhetoric to say he wants to negotiate changes. New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras and PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, who signed the Memorandum, said they too now want to change the deal they signed but said their plans would keep Greece in the Eurozone while Tsipras’ ideas would not, but he failed to explain how.
Unemployment has been rising steadily as the country grapples with austerity measures designed to address its debt crisis, with Greece now in a fifth year of recession with the economy shrinking and many jobs lost permanently with thousands of businesses shuttered or moving out of the country as they can’t cope with the big jumps in taxes and bureaucracy.
(Sources: Reuters, Kathimerini, Deutsche-Presse)