Μake us preferred on Google

Greece’s unemployment rate fell to 7.9% in July 2026, down from 8.1% in June and 8.9% a year earlier, according to the latest labor force survey from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).

That marks the lowest rate for the month of July in 19 years. Unemployment has not been lower in July since 2008, before the onset of the global financial crisis, when the rate stood at 7.6%.

But the headline figure tells only part of the story. The July data are preliminary estimates, subject to quarterly revision. There is also a significant discrepancy between ELSTAT’s count of unemployed people — 376,508 — and the figure recorded by Greek Public Employment Service (DYPA), which put the number at 715,328 in July, up to 50% higher, reflecting differences in methodology.

More significantly, the number of people currently employed remains about 213,000 below its July 2018 level — 4,370,800 compared with 4,592,000 — while the population outside the labor force altogether has shrunk by an even larger 537,700 people over the same period.

Those figures suggest the drop in unemployment is linked less to job creation than to a shrinking population, according to a new analysis by the Institute of Alternative Policies (ENA), an independent, left-leaning think tank based in Athens, which examined Greek labor market trends since the financial crisis.

The ENA study, comparing annual data from 2008 to 2025, found that a falling unemployment rate does not by itself indicate improved employment conditions, particularly when wages have yet to recover their pre-crisis purchasing power. According to the Labour Institute of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), the average annual real wage in 2025 remained 31% below its 2009 level and essentially unchanged from 2019.

Finding work is undeniably easier today than in 2013, when official unemployment peaked above 28%. But a recent OECD study found that Greek workers under 29 spend 60% of their wages on housing and earn on average 40% less than their peers across the OECD’s European member states.