Unemployment

Greece's unemployment rate eased slightly to 26.8 percent in March from an upwardly revised 26.9 percent in the previous month, the country's statistics agency ELSTAT said on Thursday.

The reading, more than twice the euro zone's average of 11.7 percent in April and still hovering near record highs, reflects the impact of Greece's six-year, austerity-fuelled recession. [Reuters]

Greece remained at the top of the eurozone's latest unemployment charts, published by the EU's statistical agency Eurostat on Tuesday.

The economic sentiment index compiled by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) reached a six-year high of 99.1 points in May.

The Greek economic think-tank’s index rose from 95.4 points a month earlier.

Greek retail sales by volume fell 0.8 percent in March compared to the same month last year, statistics service ELSTAT said on Friday.

The reading had risen at a revised annual pace of 0.9 percent in February, more than previously estimated.

Some 4 million new unemployed were registered worldwide in 2013 and 3 more million will join them in 2014, according to the annual report of the International Labor Organization.

Employer who employs 10 people will get tax benefits

The law on citizens’ income tax, the debate on changes of which began in the Parliament yesterday, shall be in force as of June 2016. Employers who until then employ up to nine people shall be exempt from payment of 65 percent of the tax.

BELGRADE - The proposed changes stipulating that employers will be temporarily exempt from paying a part of the income tax and contributions for newly hired people will not help resolve the issue of unemployment or deliver a major blow to the grey economy.

The number of unemployed Bulgarians under 29 years of age fell by almost 7,000 since the beginning of 2014, but still remains high - more than 68,000 people countrywide.

In the first months of 2014, about 5,450 young people have found a job or an internship through subsidized employment, while 15,000 were employed in the real sector, Dnevnik reports.

Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras speaks in Athens Tuesday during a televised presentation of the development framework of the Greek economy, ahead of the Eropean elections sheduled for May 25.

Experts from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) expect that in 2014 the unemployment in the country will stop rising, and might even decrease. 

The annual report of the BAS on unemployment and inequality trends in Bulgaria found, that the employment rate would rise very slightly in 2014 and will entirely depend on the growth of the GDP.