The number of people out of work in Germany increased by 8,000 to 2.814 million in February, while the unemployment rate remained at 6.1 percent. The Federal Labour Office said today that the number of unemployed was 194,000 higher year-on-year.
Unemployment rises despite economic resilience
“The weak economic environment is stifling an otherwise robust labor market. Unemployment and underemployment rose in February and business demand for new workers fell,” said Andrea Nahles, head of the labor office.
If seasonally adjusted data were taken into account, then the number of unemployed rose by 11,000 month-on-month to 2.713 million in February. The unemployment rate remained at 5.9 percent, according to the revised data.
Surge in job protection applications
According to the latest data, the german Labour Office recorded 58,000 applications for coursework, a job protection scheme, from 1 to 25 February. This is significantly more than in the comparable period in January, when there were 46,000. However, these figures are preliminary, because the balance of the actual use of the kurzarbeit is available to the office for the time being until the end of December, when 175,000 people received money under the protective regime. Thus, the number of cases of kurzarbeit use decreased in December compared to November, when 186,000 employees used the measure, according to updated data.
The number of job vacancies registered by the labour office in February was 706,000. In the year-on-year comparison, the number of vacancies on offer was 72,000 lower.
Source: Czech Press Office
