Unemployment rate rose to 6.8% in Q3

Unemployment in Cyprus in Q3 rose to 6.8%, compared with 6.6% in the same period last year, according to official data.

The trends show that youth unemployment is around 20%, more women are in part-time work, and most jobless are unemployed for less than six months.

The number of unemployed reached 32,868 in Q3 2022 from 31,355 in Q3 2021.

The labour force in Q3 numbered 486,492 or 65.4% of the population (males 71.3%, females 60%) from 472,314 (64.6%) a year ago.

And the number of employed rose to 453,625, and the employment rate was 61% (males 67.4%, females 55.2%) from 440,959 (60.3%) in Q3 2021.

For the age group 20-64, the employment rate was 78.3% — for males, it was 84.8%, and for females, 72.3%.

In the same quarter of 2021, the rate was 77.2% (males 83.2%, females 71.5%), Cystat said.

Employment among those aged 55-64 was 65.2% from 65.5% in 2021.

The largest percentage of employed people was in Services, with 80.5% of the labour force, followed by Manufacturing (17.2%) and Agriculture (2.3%).

Last year it was 79.9% in Services, 17.3% in Manufacturing and 2.8% in Agriculture.

The share of part-time employment to total employment was 9.8% or 44,631 persons (males 8.3%, females 11.6%), with the corresponding rates for Q3 2021 at 11% (males 9.4%, females 12.7%).

Some 89.1% or 404,013 of the total employed were employees, of whom 11.5% (46,636) had a temporary job.

In Q3 2021, employees accounted for 88.1% of total employment, of which 13.0% had a temporary job.

The unemployment rate among 15-24-year-olds rose to 19.9% (males 18.0%, females 21.6%) compared with 14.5% (males 14.1%, females 14.9%) in the respective quarter of last year.

Regarding the duration of unemployment, 56.2% searched for a job for less than six months, 14.9% for 6-11 months, and 28.9% were long-term unemployed.

The survey noted that the corresponding rates for Q3 2021 were 42.8%, 24.3% and 32.9%.