The third quarter of 2015 saw an increase of 2.8 per cent in employment when compared to the same quarter last year, Labour Force Survey estimates showed.

The National Statistics Office (NSO) said total employment stood at 189,565 which accounted for more than half the population aged 15 and over.

On average, out of every 100 persons aged 15 to 64, 65 were employed. The highest rate of employment was recorded among those aged between 25 and 54, with 78.7 per cent of those in this age group being employed.

The male employment rate for this age bracket was 92.2 per cent while that for females stood at 64.4 per cent, the NSO said.

In the third quarter, 10,485 persons were unemployed, down from 11,450 persons last year.

Self-employed persons ac-counted for 13.7 per cent of the total employed population. The majority of employed persons worked on a full-time basis and totalled 158,761.

The statistics office said it estimated 24,756 (13.1 per cent) had a part-time job as their primary employment and a further 6,048 were working on full-time with reduced hours.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.