Measuring the Unemployment Risk in Northern Greece from the LFS Micro-Data during the Period 1994-2006

This paper investigates unemployment risk and job prospects of individuals in the three Northern Greek regions (Central Macedonia, Western Macedonia, and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace), during the implementation of the second (1994-99) and the third (2000-06) Community Support Frameworks. More specifically, the research focuses on the social and demographic characteristics that increase the chances of individuals in finding a job, and explores the impact of gender, age, marital status, residence location, level of education, immigrant status, registered in the Manpower Employment Organization (OAED) and participation in training courses. Furthermore, there is an investigation whether University graduates face greater difficulties in finding a job than non-University graduates, as a series of studies or aggregate statistics for Greece conclude. Sampling is based on individual anonymized records (micro-data) of the Labour Force Survey for both employed and unemployed at Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics-2 level. The findings of the logit model are mixed for all the variables used, apart from those of registered in OAED for which the results have no differences among regions and years.