German unemployment now on the rise

Following a steady month in April, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) figures showed German unemployment had remained at 7.4% with a total volume of 40.08 million, increasing by 650,000 year on the year.

However in the month of May, the number of people out of work is up by 4,000 from April to 3.31 million as record oil prices and the strength of the euro has caused exports to falter whereas until now, unemployment has fallen every month since January 2006.

Despite the ILO figures, it seems as though business confidence and consumer confidence still remain steady and so the underlying labour market conditions are likely to improve, which should reignite growth.

Market service and manufacturing industries expanded at the slowest pace in five years in May and the unemployment numbers here include 15,000 and 20,000 that were added as a result of a computer error.

With this accounted for, analysts still expect that the average unemployment figure this year to fall to 3.43 million.

When compared to elsewhere, Germany’s jobless rate was 7.3 percent in March, which was lower than the 7.8 percent in France.

However, neither euro zone heavyweights compares well with Japan or the US who have unemployment rates of 3.8 percent and 5.1 percent respectively.

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