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Unemployment at 8.6% in Q1 2021

11/06/2021 15:51

Unemployment in the first quarter of 2021 amounted to 8.6% of the labour force, data released by the Statistical Service of Cyprus (Cystat) show.

According to the results of the Labour Force Survey, the labour force in the 1st quarter of 2021 amounted to 453,638 persons or 62.2% of the population (males 69.0%, females 55.9%) compared with 449,861 persons (62.5%) in the corresponding quarter of last year.

The number of employed persons was 414,668 and the employment rate 56.8% (males 62.9%, females 51.2%) compared with 417,057 persons (57.9%) in the corresponding quarter of 2020.
 
The number of unemployed persons amounted to 38,970 corresponding to an unemployment rate of 8.6% of the labour force (males 8.8%, females 8.3%) in comparison to 32,803 persons (7.3%) in the respective period of last year, Cystat said.
 
Unemployment in young persons aged 15-24 years old, amounted to 19.5% of the labour force of the same age group (males 25.3%, females 12.8%) in comparison to 14.5% (males 15.9%, females 13.3%) in the corresponding quarter of 2020.
 
With respect to employment duration, Cystat said that 42.4% of the total unemployed persons searched for a job for a period of less than 6 months, 25.3% for a period of 6-11 months, whereas a percentage of 32.3% were long-term unemployed. The corresponding rates for the 1st quarter of 2020 were 57.9%, 13.9% and 28.2%, Cystat added.
 
Furthermore, employment for the age group 20-64 amounted to 73.5% in Q1 2021, with the rate for males at 79.7% and for females at 67.7%, compared with was 75.1% (males 80.6%, females 69.9%).
 
For the age group 55-64 the employment rate was 60.1% in comparison to 59.5% in the corresponding quarter of 2020.
 
The biggest share of employment was registered in the Services sector with 77.3%, followed by Manufacturing with 19.3% and Agriculture with 3.4%. in the 1st quarter of 2020, the corresponding percentages were Services 78.3%, Manufacturing 19.1% and Agriculture 2.6%.
 
Part-time employment share to total employment amounted to 12.3% or 50,983 persons (males 10.8%, females 14.0%), compared with 11.4% (males 7.8%, females 15.5%) in the same quarter of last year.
 
A total of 362,983 or 87.5% of the total employed were employees, of which 13.2% (48,026 persons) had a temporary job. In the corresponding quarter of 2020 employees accounted for 85.5% of total employment of which 13.4% had a temporary job, Cystat said.