This will be a quick follow-up post on the 2014Q3 employment figures post. The Greek Ministry of Employment publishes monthly figures of employment announcements by employers on an online registration system called ‘Ergani’. Based on the recently announced numbers for December of 2014 (sorry the document is in Greek) I ‘d like to make a few projections on the current state of unemployment in Greece:

Greece Net Employment figures 2014H2 - Ergani

It is quite evident that net employment flows were negative during 2014H2 due to 2014Q4 dynamics (which are not yet reflected on the unemployment survey numbers published by ELSTAT). Compared to 2013 the total difference was 120,000 jobs (from a positive net flow of 43,000 jobs to an outflow of 77,000 employees) with the fourth quarter loosing almost 90,000 jobs, a figure close to three times that of 2013.

Since seasonal adjustment of employment is always a smoothing mechanism which requires a large number of observations my feeling is that October/November monthly employment surveys, as well as the quarterly 2014Q4 survey, will register a significant fall in employment which might result into an increase of the unemployment rate. With a labour force of 4,830 thousand people, the 88,000 jobs shortfall during 2014Q4 is equal to almost 2% which should appear in the unemployment numbers during the upcoming months. Something to definitely keep an eye on.