July unemployment up

In July, 2004, there were 8,131 unemployed persons registering for work, an increase of 189 over June according to the latest figures issued by the National Statistics Office. Of these, 6,531 were males, the rest females.

On an annual basis, there was an increase of 217 persons on the unemployment register.

In the month under review, those persons registering under Part 1 of the unemployment register amounted to 7,466, whereas those registering under Part 2 amounted to 665.

In July there were 985 unemployed persons aged under 20; 1,343 persons between 20 and 24; 1,012 persons between 25 and 29; 2,516 persons between 30 and 44; and 2,275 persons aged over 45 years.

There were 636 registered unemployed in Gozo and 7,495 registered unemployed in Malta. With specific reference to Gozo, there were 452 males and 184 females registering for work. On the other hand, there were 6,079 males and 1,416 females registering for work in Malta.

The unemployment rates for July 2004 are not available since the data of the labour supply for this month have not yet been published.

The latest unemployment rate, for March 2004, stood at 5.8 per cent of the labour supply. This figure translates into 6.5 per cent for men and 4.2 per cent for women. In March the long-term unemployment rate stood at 1.8 per cent, whereas the unemployment rate for persons who were 45 years and over stood at 4.1 per cent during the same month.

The unemployment rate among young people stood at 8.7 per cent. The rate of unemployment among males who were less than 25 years old was 10 per cent, while that of females was seven per cent.