Labour Minister Zeta Emilianides said on Monday that the measures already announced by the government and other future measures will curb unemployment.
In statements to the press, following a meeting with women trade unions, the Labour Minister acknowledged the high rate of unemployment, at 12,4% with nearly 44,000 people out of work, saying this is why the government has announced projects to tackle unemployment.
The Cyprus Statistical Service said on Monday that in 2012 the unemployment rate amounted to 11,8% of the labour force.
The rate was 11,1% for females and 12,5% for males.
The Statistical Service also said that the highest rate of unemployment was recorded among young people below 25 years old and accounted for 27,8% of the labour force of the same age group.
In its report “Labour Force Survey” for 2012, published on Monday, the Statistical Service added that the labour force (i.e. the employed and unemployed persons) amounted to 440.604 persons in 2012 consisting of 52,7% men and 47,3% women.
The employed persons reached 388.605 and the employment rate for persons aged 20-64 years old was 70,2%. The corresponding rate for males stood at 76,1 % while that for females was much lower at 64,8%. Both rates, however, are among the highest in the European Union.
According to the Survey, the workforce of Cyprus has a relatively high educational background since more than one-third (42,1%) of the workforce have completed tertiary education and 39,0% completed upper secondary education.
Moreover, 41.670 persons or 10,7% of the employed worked on a part-time basis and 48,2% of these reported that they could not find a full-time job while 18,9% reported that they work on a part-time basis for personal or family reasons.
The report said that 2,6% of the working population or 10.015 persons reported having a second job and most of them (22,1%) chose agriculture as a sideline.
The report provides data on the ad-hoc module on “Transition from work to retirement”.
In particular, 89,8% of the persons aged 50-69 receive old age pension from social insurance and/or pension from government/semi government/ local government or social pension, 3,2% receive old age pension from an occupational old age pension scheme, 2,8 receive old age pension from a personal old age pension scheme e.g. through life-insurance companies while 7,0% receive widow’s pension and 6,2% disability / invalidity pension. It is noted that someone could receive more than one type of pension.
According to the findings, 41,9% of the persons aged 50-69 received their first old age pension at the age of 63 years old, 18,7% received it at the age of 65 years old, 16,8% at the age of 60 years old while only 5,5% received their first pension at the age of 55 years old.
The Euro area Finance Ministers meet Monday in Brussels to discuss and approve the first tranche of the €10 billion financial assistance programme to Cyprus, amounting to 3 billion.