AS CYPRUS’ economic crisis peaked last March, and with no money and no job, 24-year-old graduate Christina Melinioti, packed her bags and, like many compatriots her age, headed to greener pastures in Europe.
“The crisis made me leave Cyprus because I couldn’t find a job,”Melinioti, who has a journalism degree, told the Cyprus Business Mail.
“Luckily, since I moved to Amsterdam things have changed, I found a job in an insurance company as soon as I got here.”
Before leaving her homeland, she had worked for a time at a cafeteria in Nicosia for 800 euros a month. Her job in Amsterdam pays more than double she said, adding that she is also happier with the standard of living she enjoys in the Netherlands.
Cyprus which traditionally enjoyed full employment saw its unemployment rate rise after 2011 to two-digit figures for the very first time since the Turkish invasion in 1974. For two years now, the jobless rate has hovered persistently above 15 per cent.
Youth unemployment reached 37 per cent in June
Younger people are those hit the most. In June, Cyprus posted the fifth highest unemployment rate of people below 25 in the European Union, touching 37 per cent, according to the latest Eurostat data.
Other university degree holders, who are still at home working in Cyprus, have to take jobs that require less skill and so pay less like Giota Koumourou who works in the reception of a Paphos hotel typing letters and answering phone calls.
Koumourou, holder of a degree in economics, said she is also mulling going abroad if she could find a well-paying job.
“I can’t find a regular job here that could pay my basic needs,” the 26-year-old said. “I’ve being working since 2012 for less than 500 euros, so I wonder what the point of studying at a university is.”
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