Unemployment in Iceland now stands at 7.7% – a drop of 2.7% from July. This equates 13,387 people, of whom 861 were underemployed, having some form of part-time work. By contrast, unemployment in August 2008 was 1.2%.
Unemployment is decreasing more than twice as fast for men as it is for women – with a drop of 3.6% for the former and 1.5% for the latter – while unemployment in general is slightly higher for men than for women, at 7.9% and 7.5% respectively.
The 16-24 age group has seen a sharp decline in unemployment, and in keeping with that, unemployment is expected to take another small dip before levelling off in September, as students working full time in the summer go back to school.