There is more evidence that the dire jobs situation in Greece is stabilising.<br /><br />The country’s unemployment rate improved in February easing to its lowest in more than a year.<br /><br />The jobless total was 26.5 percent of the workforce, having fallen for the fifth straight month.<br /><br />It had reached a record 27.7 percent last September.<br /><br />It is another sign that the Greek economy is emerging from a crippling six-year slump, during which the unemployment rate has more than tripled.<br /><br />But even when Greece’s economy starts growing again it will take many years to produce enough jobs to absorb the one million unemployed people the debt crisis created.<br /><br />Hardest-hit from joblessness are those aged 15 to 24. Their jobless rate, excluding students and military conscripts, registered 56.9 percent in February, compared with 23 percent when the crisis started.<br /><br />Joblessness is a major worry for Greece’s coalition government ahead of this month’s European parliamentary elections.<br /><br />It is keen to show there is light at the end of the tunnel after years of harsh austerity.
