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Greek unemployment surges to 24.4 per cent in June, police step up protests

By: The Associated Press

Posted: 09/5/2012 8:36 AM | Comments: 0 | Last Modified: 09/6/2012 4:30 AM

A pedestrian walks past the headquarters of the Greek Police in Athens, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012. Protest banners at the entrance of the building read: "Forgotten Commitments" and "No Return to Dark Days." Greece's Police Officers' Association is organizing a uniformed protest in Athens on Thursday against pay cuts expected as part of a massive new austerity package demanded by Greece's rescue creditors. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

ATHENS, Greece - Greece's unemployment rate surged to 24.4 per cent in June, according to official figures Thursday, as protests continued against a massive new austerity package, with police blocking their colleagues from starting work.

The Greek Statistical Authority said the number of people out of work in June rose by 34,000 to more than 1.2 million. The jobless rate was up from 23.5 per cent in May and 17.2 per cent the previous year.

Greece's coalition government is hammering out a new €11.5 billion ($14.4 billion) austerity package for 2013-14, demanded by rescue creditors from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

The new cuts, though not yet finalized, are likely to see further cuts to benefits as well as pensions and several groups of employees on the state payroll, including the police.

Earlier Thursday, protesting police officers in Greece have defied their own colleagues in the riot police and blocked the entrance of one of their own facilities for about four hours.

About 50 members of the Greek Police Officers' Association picketed police facilities at Zografou, northeast of central Athens, preventing buses used for transporting riot police from leaving the site. The buses are scheduled to go to the northern city of Thessaloniki, where weekend anti-austerity demonstrations are planned.

The protesters are planning a protest rally in central Athens later Thursday with officers in uniform joined by colleagues from the Coast Guard and Fire Service.

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