Nuremberg, Germany - German unemployment declined by 127,000
in May to 3.45 million, according to figures released by the Federal
Labour Agency on Thursday.
That means 8.2 per cent of the workforce are without jobs.
'The spring revival reached the labour market later than usual
this year and brought a considerable decrease in the number of people
out of work,' said the head of the labour agency, Frank-Juergen
Weise.
But he warned that labour market indicators failed to show a trend
for the better as Europe's biggest economy struggled to drag itself
out of recession.
Some 1.1 million workers were on short-time working conditions as
factories acted to reduce capacity because of a fall-off in orders
triggered by the global economic meltdown.
In the key engineering sector, new orders in April slumped by 58
per cent from the same month of the previous year, figures released
on Thursday showed.
The positive labour market figures were helped by changes to the
way statistics are compiled. Under the new calculations, people
seeking jobs through private employment agencies are not classed as
unemployed.
If this category were added to the official figures, the number of
jobless in May would be 3.47 million, a labour agency spokeswoman
said.
In seasonally adjusted terms, the number of jobless rose
by 1,000 to 3.45 million, the agency said.
Economists have warned the number of unemployed could climb to 4.1
million by the end of the year, with the government saying it expects
the nation's economy to contract a dramatic 6 per cent this year.
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