ATHENS, Dec. 5-- Greece's labor market appears saturated and the government needs to take measures to assist the migrants to be employed, an expert who drafted a study on the issue told Xinhua in a recent interview. The increased foreign workforce in Greece has contained the improvement in the country's jobless rate for non-Greeks, according to the study conducted by the state-funded Center of Planning and Economic Research (KEPE) that was published in the think tank's "Greek Economic Outlook" journal in late October. As Greece is struggling to incorporate some of the thousands of migrants arriving each month on its islands, the country's labor market finds it very hard to absorb those allowed to stay and work in the country, the study showed. Official figures showed that over 7,000 migrants arrived at the northern Aegean islands in November. According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) figures processed by the KEPE, the general jobless rate in Greece came to 19.2 percent in January-March 2019, down from 21.2 percent a year earlier. But the jobless rate among non-Greek men during the same period dropped just one percentage point to 32.3 percent and rose 2.4 percentage points to 41.1 percent among non-Greek women. Actually, the number of employed non-Greek men and non-Greek women rose by 11.9 percent and 5.4 percent year-on-year, respectively, in the first quarter of 2019. But because of the influx of more migrants, the increases were overshadowed. |