Greek unemployment drops to 24 percent in December

Greece’s jobless rate dropped to 24 percent in December from a downwardly revised 24.4 percent in the previous month, statistics agency ELSTAT said on Thursday.

The number of unemployed reached 1.14 million people.

December’s reading, based on seasonally adjusted data, was the lowest since May 2012 when unemployment stood at 24.0 percent. The jobless rate hit a record high of 27.9 percent in September 2013.

Unemployment has come down from record highs but remains more than double the eurozone’s average of 10.3 percent in January.

Greece’s economy expanded slightly in the last three months of 2015 as national output grew 0.1 percent quarter-on-quarter, driven by private consumption and investment. It shrank 0.3 percent in the year as a whole.