MORE CONTEXT on this morning’s unemployment figures: EFG Hermes’ Mohamed Abu Basha took a deeper dive in a client note today, writing that “while the headline number is somewhat underwhelming, it carried an important development: the number of employed people has risen to exceed pre-COVID-19 levels. … The number of employed jumped by a sharp 1.7 mn people, taking the overall number of employed people to 27.8mn. In the previous quarters, the drop in employment was driven by a reduced labour force.” Abu Basha thinks it is still a bit surprising that “employment recovered that strongly while the important tourism sector continues to suffer from depressed activity as a result of the pandemic.”

What’s driving job creation? Trade and agriculture, which together created more than 1 mn jobs, he says, followed by construction (317k jobs) and healthcare (124k).

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