Greece’s labor market nightmare keeps getting worse

​It’s going to be a long climb out of this hole.
​It’s going to be a long climb out of this hole.
Image: Reuters/John Kolesidis
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It’s still rising. Greece’s official unemployment rate climbed to 28% in November, up from 27.7% in October.

It’s by far the worst unemployment rate among the major economies in the eurozone, even outpacing Spain’s terrible job market, where unemployment is above 25%.

Since Greek GDP peaked in the third quarter of 2007, the economy has collapsed by roughly 21%.  That’s one of the worst recessions in modern history.

Although, it still comes nowhere near the worst on record, which was the severe drop in output after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Between 1989 and 1998, GDP there sank by roughly 45%.