A drop in unemployment figures, overall joblessness and youth unemployment was announced on Wednesday by President Nikos Christodoulides and Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou.

“In absolute numbers, we had a decrease of 2,025 people, that is, from 5,221 to 3,196,” Christodoulides said as he went into a meeting of the Council of Ministers.

At 9.9 per cent, youth employment for those up to 24 years is down 5.8 per cent from 15.7 per cent in April 2024, a drop of 37 per cent.

The overall unemployment rate, Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou said, was at 3.7 per cent in April.

This marks a 27.5 per cent drop on the previous year.

Panayiotou emphasised that Cyprus now held the third lowest unemployment rate in the Eurozone, adding the average rate stood at 5.9 per cent across the EU and 6.2 per cent within the Eurozone.

“The implementation of government policy yields positive results that are objectively confirmed through data and figures,” he said.

The minister added that, according to figures from the Cypriot Statistical Service CyStat, 2024 saw the lowest number of registered unemployed young people aged up to 29 in the past two decades.

Ans, he said that May 2025 had seen the overall number of unemployed youths drop to less than 1,000 for the first time, now standing at 962.

He also noted a significant drop in the number of young people aged up to 29 who are not in employment, education or training, highlighting that in 2024 the rate fell to 12.9 per cent, marking the lowest recorded in the past 15 years.

In the first quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate in Cyprus fell to 5 per cent, down 0.8 per cent from 5.8 per cent in the same quarter of 2024 with the number of unemployed people decreasing from 29,102 to 26,161.

Additionally, Panayiotou announced changes to the unemployment benefit request process including digitalisation to several services.

“The renewal of registration with the Public Employment Service (PES) for finding or improving employment will be done online and meetings with physical presence will be scheduled only in cases where this is deemed necessary,” the minister said.