GETTY Greece's jobless rate has eased to 20.7 per cent

FREE now SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Make the most of your money by signing up to our newsletter fornow We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

Greece's statistics service ELSTAT said the jobless rate eased to 20.7 percent in October, however with one in five still unemployed time is running out for the so-called "lost generation". New data on the debt-riddled Greek state shows the number of registered unemployed at 990.288 people, with younger persons aged up to 24 bearing the brunt of being out of work. But life is yet to improve for Greece's "lost generation" with those aged 15 to 24, still suffering a jobless rate of 40.8 per cent although this is down from 44.4 percent a year ago. Greece's jobless rate, which hit a record high of 27.9 percent in September 2013, has been coming down in recent months but remains the highest in the Eurozone.

GETTY Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras believes the good times are near

2018 is a milestone year ... a year full of challenges that in order to be met require hard work so that this can also be a year of vindication for the sacrifices of the Greek people Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras

Greece expects the unemployment rate to fall to 18.4 per cent this year, based on projections in its 2018 budget draft. Unemployment in the 19 countries sharing the euro stood at 8.8 per cent in October, the lowest rate since January 2009. Although unemployment in Greece remains shocking, observers the country is beginning to move in the right direction. Earlier this week Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told his first cabinet meeting of the year that Greece is in the “final stretch” of its third bailout programme.

GETTY Life is yet to improve for Greece’s so-called “lost generation”

Mr Tsipras said back in July: “We can now say with certainty that the economy is on the up, the worst is clearly behind us." Dr Ioannis Oikonomou, associate professor in finance at Henley Business School who has taught many subjects to JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch told the Express.co.uk earlier this month that there are indications that things are picking up, as he puts it, “a bit.” But Mr Tsipras is comfortable in describing 2018 as, 'a year of vindication' for Greece, according to the Guardian, telling his cabinet that, “2018 is a milestone year." The PM added that the year would be full of challenges, but commentators remain sceptical about Greek’s chances. Columnist Tony Barber says Greece risks complacency as the bailout project winds down and a type of “Greece fatigue” sets in among other Eurozone members. Mr Barber says Europeans are tired of Greece’s plight and want to wind down their involvement, in order to, “move on to the bigger challenge of advancing eurozone integration”.

GETTY Greece expects the unemployment rate to fall to 18.4 percent this year