Greece’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate eased to 26.5% in February from 26.7% in February 2013 and 26.6% in January 2014, Hellenic Statistical Authority said on Thursday.
The statistics service, in a monthly report, said that the number of unemployed people totaled 1,300,165 and noted that new hirings were workers up to 34 years old (with a basic salary of 586 euros), while for young people age below 25 years old the basic salary was 511 euros.

The number of unemployed people fell by 14,996 compared with February 2013 (-1.1%) and by 7,987 compared with January 2014 (-0.6%).
The number of employed people totaled 3,609,445, down 0.2% compared with February 2013 and down 0.1% from January 2014. The number of economically non-active population was 3,408,565, up 0.7% from February last year and up 0.4% from January 2014.

The unemployment rate among women was 30% in February, while among men the unemployment rate was 23.8%. The 15-24 age group recorded the highest unemployment rate (56.9% in February, down from 60.1% in February last year), followed by the 25-34 age group (34.7% from 36.1%), the 35-44 age group (24.2% from 23.4%), the 45-54 age group (20.8% from 20.4%), the 55-64 age group (17.6% from 16.6%) and the 65-74 age group (14.8% from 7.3%).

Among the country’s regions Epirus-Western Macedonia (29.6% in February from 28.8% last year) recorded the highest unemployment rate, followed by Attica (27.3% from 27.8%), Macedonia-Thrace (26.9% from 28.3%), Thessaly-Central Greece (26.1% from 27.8%), the Peloponese-Western Greece-Ionian Islands (26.1% from 23.1%), Crete (23.8% from 23.3%) and the Aegean (21.3% from 20.2%).