ATHENS: A third of a million Greeks lost their jobs last year, as the government enacted budget reforms to fight debt, official data showed on Thursday.
The number of people registered as unemployed remained above a million in December 2011, amounting to 21 percent of the workforce, the data showed.
The state statistics agency said that more than 1.033 million people were unemployed in December, with nearly 2,000 losing their jobs over the previous month and over 344,000 over a year as Greece neared completion on a historic debt wipeout.
More than half of those aged up to 24 -- 51.1 percent -- in addition to women are the hardest hit by a recession now in its fifth year.
Greece in the evening will conclude the main phase in an exchange of bonds worth 206 billion euros ($275 billion), part of a deal to erase the country's debt of over 350 billion euros by nearly a third.
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