Greece’s unemployment rate declined to 7.9% in July 2026, according to data released by Eurostat. The figure means about 377,000 people were out of work in Greece, down from 384,000 in June and a much steeper drop from the 422,000 recorded in July 2025.
The decline in Greece’s unemployment rate stands out against the wider European trend. Across the euro area, joblessness held steady at 6.4% in July, unchanged from June but higher than the 6.3% seen a year earlier. The European Union as a whole reported a rate of 6.1%, also flat compared with June and up slightly from 6.0% in July 2025.
Researchers at Eurostat noted that overall EU unemployment fell by 41,000 people from June, reaching 13.516 million, while the euro area total of 11.264 million stayed unchanged from the month before.
Greece’s unemployment decline trails other EU countries
Even with the improvement, Greece’s jobless rate remains well above both the euro area and EU averages. Spain posted the second-highest rate in the bloc at 10.0%, while Finland led with 10.5%. On the other end of the scale, Czechia and Poland reported the lowest rates, at 3.3% and 3.4%.
Young workers in Greece saw an even bigger turnaround. The youth unemployment rate, which covers people under 25, dropped to 16.8% in July from 21.1% in June, with the number of unemployed young Greeks falling to 45,000 from 57,000. Across the EU, youth unemployment eased slightly to 15.1%, with 2.930 million young people out of work.
Data points to faster recovery in Greece
A gender gap also persists in Greece. Men faced a 5.9% unemployment rate in July, while women faced 10.4%, nearly double that figure. That gap of 4.5 percentage points is the widest recorded among EU countries, far exceeding gaps seen in nations such as Spain and Portugal.
The figures suggest Greece is recovering faster than many of its European neighbors, even as unemployment holds steady or ticks upward across much of the continent.
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