Cyprus s/a unemployment falls for third time in 6 months

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**Pace of annual increase also slows**
A small indication that the rise in unemployment might have peaked came last week with a data release showing that the number of unemployed registered at the District Labour Offices fell on a seasonally adjusted basis for the third time in six months in November.
The number of (seasonally adjusted) unemployed dropped by 136 to 39,105, compared with 39,241 in October 2012.
In absolute terms, unemployment reached 39,522. This was 24.2% or 7,696 higher than recorded in November 2011.
Here, too, however, there is reason to hope, as the increase of 24.2% was the slowest since August 2011. The average pace of increase in January-October was 29.4%.
The main increase compared with the year earlier was in retail and wholesale trade (1,625), construction (1,343), accommodation and food services (1,148), manufacturing (792) and public administration (626).
There were also 512 more newcomers in the labour market in November 2012 than November 2011.
According to Eurostat, which estimates unemployment on the basis of a mixture of the monthly reported registered unemployed and the quarterly reported Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate in Cyprus reached 12.9% in October.
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