Cyprus has the 4th highest unemployment rate across the EU, with a simultaneous dramatic downgrading in the quality of labour conditions

Statement by the AKEL C.C. Spokesperson Stefanos Stefanou

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 10 January 2019, Nicosia

Despite the constant efforts by the Anastasiades-DISY government to glorify the socio-economic situation, the figures released by Eurostat on unemployment, published yesterday, reveal the sad position of Cyprus. Cyprus, despite the government’s repeated claim about the economy’s supposed “success story”, remains the country with the fourth highest unemployment rate across the EU.

However, apart from the official unemployment figures, what is of primary importance is the quality of labour conditions. In the six years of the Anastasiades-DISY government labour relations has been deregulated and their quality has been dramatically downgraded. The number of working people on low incomes, in precarious jobs and workers without any protection whatsoever have risen sharply. Full-time jobs are being converted into more part-time jobs. In Cyprus in 2019, 43% of those who work take home a salary of less than 1250 euros, while in 10 years the percentage of people at risk of poverty has almost doubled.

As much as the government is trying to glorify the situation, it hasn’t succeed in doing so for the simple reason that it is in conflict with the wretched reality of poverty, inequality, social and job insecurity experienced by the working people and citizens in general.