The unemployment rate in Portugal has fallen to the lowest level in four years, Portuguese media reported.

Official data revealed on Wednesday by Statistics Portugal showed the country’s unemployment rate fell to 11.9 percent in this year’s second quarter. It was a 1.8-percentage points drop from the previous quarter.

According to Portuguese online newspaper Observador, it was the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2010; although at that time the unemployment rate in Portugal was calculated in a different way.

The second-quarter joblessness rate was also the lowest since the troika – the tripartite committee led by the European Commission with the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund for bailouts of European Union member states – intervened in Portugal in 2011, Portuguese newspaper Público noted. At that time, the media outlet added, Portugal’s unemployment rate was 12.1 percent.

“The thanks for job creation belongs to companies; to the private sector,” Portugal’s Minister of Economy, Pires de Lima, said, in reaction to the latest statistics, as quoted by Portuguese commercial radio service TSF.

The Minister stressed that while the nation could not view the numbers “euphorically” they were “a sign of hope for the Portuguese people”.

According to the data released by Statistics Portugal, there were 38,000 fewer unemployed people in the second quarter than when the troika entered Portugal. But “the number of jobs is still substantially inferior,” to the tally that existed before the crisis, Público added.

Público also noted that the data from the statistics bureau did not take into account seasonal effects on employment. The second quarter of each year, the newspaper argued, usually benefits from temporary jobs created for summer work.