Registered Unemployment.
Unemployment:
Unemployment:
The Labour Administration through the employment offices is responsible for the data collection and statistical processing of this series. The National Statistical Service of Greece is responsible for publishing the series.
The data from this series cover the whole country based on returns from approximately 110 registration offices. All categories of unemployed persons aged 15 years and above, of Greek or foreign nationality, whether they are members of unemployment benefit schemes or not, who are seeking work through registration as employees in the private sector are included. All employees except in agriculture become members of the Unemployment Insurance Scheme. This scheme pays benefit to workers not responsible for their loss of job, who have worked for at least 125 working days in the 14 months before they became unemployed, excluding any days worked in the last two months. First-time benefit recipients must in addition have worked at least 80 working days per year in the last three years. ersons receiving retirement pensions however are outside the coverage.
The data from this series are also available by sex and age groups, and for the Greater Athens area. Data concerning the number of persons registered for employment, placements, and dismissals (i.e. deletions from the register) are also available.
The series is monthly and started in 1962. From 1982, quarterly data are also available, covering certain European Economic Community requirements.
Unemployment: Unemployed persons are persons without work, who are capable of work and are seeking work as employees by registering with the Labour Administration's employment offices. The work sought may be permanent or temporary, part- or full-time (no minimum duration is set). Also included are first jobseekers and re-entrants to the workforce; some employable disabled persons and persons in receipt of other than retirement pensions, provided they have been registered at employment offices. Responsibility for the the loss of their last job does not prevent persons from being included in the unemployment count (except that the payment of unemployment benefit may be affected in view of the entitlement conditions which stipulate that payments shall be made to workers who have lost their job through no fault of their own, etc.).
Excluded from the registered unemployment statistics are persons with some form of minimal employment seeking other work; and persons who participate in education, training or job creation courses.
Registration: Is by voluntary application to an employment office The unemployed must report in once a month.
Deletion from the register: Registrants who fail to report to employment offices once a month without good reason are deleted from the register and from the unemployment statistics one month later. Short interruptions of unemployment (work of up to three days) between attendance dates are not considered as breaks in unemployment. In the case of illness the unemployment benefit is replaced by a sickness allowance, and persons are deleted from the register of unemployed. In practice however a count takes place every ten days and persons may only be unaccounted for during one such period, after which they are no longer counted as unemployed. Unjustified (subjective) refusals of an offer of employment also entail deletion from the register. Persons taking part in State-assisted cultural or new job training schemes are deleted from the register.
The last day of the month. Preliminary data are generally compiled ten days later, while the complete data are compiled three to four months after the reference date.
Completed employment office reports are transmitted to the National Statistical Service at the end of each month. The data are controlled there, in co-operation with the Labour Administration, for processing and compilation of the national statistics. Correlation of the registered unemployment data with census or labour force survey data has been proved misleading. No further evaluations are made of the data at present.
An unemployment rate for the total of both sexes combined is calculated monthly but is not available in published form with the absolute numbers of registered unemployed. Estimated unemployment rates for males and females separately are also computed by the Ministry of Labour and are available upon request.
In 1976 the period allowed for renewal of registration was changed from six months to one month only. In 1985 new legislation dealing with registered unemployment resulted in new motives for registration and a corresponding heavy increase in the number of registered unemployed.
National Statistical Service of Greece: "Monthly Statistical Bulletin" (Athens, 1988). Each issue contains data for the preceding two months.
idem: "Labour Statistics" (quarterly) (Athens, 1988).
idem: "Statistical Yearbook of Greece" (annual) (Athens, 1987). Each issue contains data for the preceding year.