Greece’s unemployment rate fell sharply in September, bucking a rise across the European Union, but the growing number of retirees returning to work is complicating the picture of the country’s labor-market recovery.
Greek unemployment declined to 7.6% in September 2026 from 8.8% a year earlier, according to Eurostat data, marking the largest annual drop in percentage points among EU member states.
By contrast, unemployment across the 27-member bloc rose to 6.2% from 6%, while the eurozone rate increased to 6.5% from 6.3%.
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The number of unemployed Greeks fell by approximately 57,000, or 13.7%, to 360,000. Across the EU, the number of jobless people increased by 471,000 to 13.77 million.
Major European economies moved in the opposite direction. France recorded 221,000 additional unemployed people, Italy 118,000 and Germany 91,000.
Despite Greece’s improvement, its unemployment rate remains 1.4 percentage points above the EU average.
A less visible factor behind the Greek figures is the rapid expansion of employment among pensioners.
More than 300,000 retirees were registered as working in September, compared with roughly 36,000 at the end of 2023, according to Greece’s social-security agency, e-EFKA.
The surge followed pension reforms introduced in January 2024 that abolished a 30% pension reduction previously imposed on retirees who continued working. The government replaced the penalty with a separate social-security contribution, making employment more financially attractive for pensioners.
However, the increase in registered working retirees doesn't necessarily represent an equivalent number of newly created jobs. Some pensioners may already have been working without declaring their employment before the rules changed.
The distinction matters for unemployment statistics.
Under Greece’s statistical methodology, employed people include those aged 15 to 89 who work, regardless of whether they receive a pension. Retirees who neither work nor actively seek employment are classified as economically inactive rather than unemployed.
When previously inactive pensioners enter employment, they increase the labor force, potentially reducing the unemployment rate even if the number of unemployed people remains unchanged.
Still, not all 300,000 working retirees represent additions to the labor force. Those already employed before retirement would have been counted previously.
Separate figures from Greece’s statistics agency, ELSTAT, highlight another complication.
Employment rose by 49,573 people year over year to 4.39 million in September, while unemployment declined by 57,627. Consequently, the overall labor force contracted by 8,054 people.
