Greek unemployment hit 25% in May, according to the Hellenic Statistics Authority (pdf). As hard as it might be to believe, that qualified as a bit of good news, considering it represented the lowest level since June 2012.
Still, May marked the 35th straight month that at least one in four Greeks who wanted a job couldn’t find one. And in all likelihood, jobs reports in the coming months will look a lot worse. That’s because Greece reports its unemployment rate on a longer lag than most countries, and the May reading is the last look at unemployment before “grexit” went from a financial buzzword to a very real and scary possibility.
Despite the very modest improvement to the overall rate, youth unemployment was still unimaginably high in May (51.8%). But with further austerity on the way as part of Greece’s third bailout deal, May might be as good as it gets for a while.