The Greek economy contracted for a ninth straight quarter in the three months to the end of June, a development likely to make it harder for the government to meet budget-reduction targets required under the country's international bailouts.
Gross domestic product declined 6.2 per cent in the second quarter from the same period last year after dropping 6.5 per cent in the first, the Athens-based Hellenic Statistical Authority said. Analysts had expected a 7 per cent fall.
Greece's economic slump, now in its fifth year, has been exacerbated by austerity measures imposed by creditors to reduce its budget deficit.
Without further rescue loans, Greece may default on its debts, which could precipitate its departure from Europe's monetary union.
"We keep on pushing more on austerity simply because we have to meet conditionalities, and there is very little done really in terms of growth," Elena Panaritis, a former member of parliament for the socialist Pasok party, said.
The revelation of Greece's spiralling debts in late 2009 sparked the European sovereign debt crisis, which is now threatening to drag the 17-nation euro region into recession.
Euro-area GDP contracted 0.2 per cent in the second quarter from the first, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.
That report is due from the European Union's statistics office in Luxembourg at 11am tomorrow.
The European Commission in May forecast Greece's economy will contract 4.7 per cent this year.
Some members of Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras's coalition government have said a deeper contraction means Greece will struggle to meet its target of reducing the budget deficit to 7.3 per cent of GDP this year from 9.1 per cent last year.
Representatives from the troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund return to Athens early next month to review Greece's economic program, which will determine whether the nation will receive further funds from rescue packages totalling €240 billion.
Greece's jobless rate rose to 23.1 per cent in May from 22.6 per cent the month before, the statistics agency said last week.
The jobless rate for Greeks aged 15 to 24 jumped to 54.9 per cent, the highest in the 27-nation European Union, from 51.5 per cent in the previous month.
At the same time, industrial production rose on an annual basis for the first time in almost four years in June, increasing 0.3 per cent after a 2.9 per cent drop in May.
Bloomberg