Unemployment, Production Data Show Greece's Economy Worsening .

By ALKMAN GRANITSAS

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

ATHENS—The Greek economy continued to show signs of erosion under the pressure of government austerity toward the end of last year, marked by an accelerating rise in unemployment and a deepening slump in industrial production.
Greece's unemployment rate soared in November to 20.9% compared with an 18.2% rate just a month earlier and up sharply from one year ago. The total number of unemployed reached 1.029 million, up by 126,062 from October, the Hellenic Statistical Authority, or Elstat, reported Thursday.
Greece also reported that industrial output fell 11.3% in December compared with the year-earlier period, after declining by 7.8% in November. Austerity measures introduced last year as part of a €110 billion ($145.87 billion) bailout plan have taken a heavy toll on Greek economic activity, weighing on consumption and investments and leading to Greece's fifth year of economic recession in 2012.

Enlarge Image

Further cuts demanded by international creditors for a second bailout this year has the country's unions up in arms. Greece's public and private sector umbrella unions, ADEDY and GSEE, Thursday called a 48-hour general strike to protest new austerity measures demanded by the country's international creditors in exchange for a fresh €130 billion bailout.

With demand for Greek goods and services from abroad dropping in the last quarter of 2011 and domestic political turmoil in October and November damaging confidence, economists say deteriorating economic conditions hit the job market in the last few months of the year.
Greece is now in the fifth year of a recession that has led to soaring unemployment and rising business bankruptcies, made worse by tough austerity measures aimed at narrowing the government budget gap. Compared with a year earlier, Greece's unemployment situation has deteriorated sharply.
In November 2010, the unemployment rate was just 13.9% and the number of jobless at 692,577. In its 2012 budget, the Greek government estimates that unemployment will have averaged 15.4% in 2011 and rise to 17.1% this year.
But Greece's private-sector umbrella union has predicted that one million Greeks will have been jobless by the end of 2011, representing a 20% unemployment rate, and foresees that increasing further this year.
According to the Elstat data, young people remain the hardest hit by Greece's deepening recession. A staggering 48% of those aged between 15 and 24 were without a job in November, a sharp increase from the 35.6% rate recorded a year earlier.
Women also continued to see fewer job opportunities than men, with the number of unemployed women at 24.5% in November, compared with 17% a year earlier. By region, the highest unemployment rate was in the northern Greek provinces of Macedonia and Thrace, where the unemployment rate reached 23.8% in November.
In the Attica region, the province that includes Athens and is home to about half the country's population, the unemployment rate soared to 21.1%—versus 19.2% in October and 13.9% a year earlier