German labour market remains unhurt despite gloomy outlook
Employment in Europe’s top economy Germany remained resilient in October despite cloudy economic skies, official data showed Wednesday, with the proportion of jobless workers holding steady month-on-month.
Just 5.0 percent of the workforce were not employed this month, federal labour agency BA said in seasonally adjusted-figures, a level that has held steady since May.
In unadjusted, absolute figures, less representative of underlying trends but closely followed in public debate, the unemployed figure fell by 30,000 people, to just over 2.2 million.
“The present weak business environment is certainly leaving traces on the labour market, but overall it remains robust,” BA chief Detlef Scheele said in a statement.
On the demand side, the number of open jobs registered with the labour agency remained high, at 764,000, although it fell back by 60,000 compared with October 2018.
As Germany’s export-oriented industrial firms suffer falling demand amid global trade wars and uncertainty, the resilient labour market is credited with keeping Europe’s largest economy afloat.
But Berlin this month slashed its economic growth forecast for 2020, saying the threats to expansion would persist into next year.
This year, the federal government expects just 0.5 percent growth.
The economy is widely believed to have suffered a technical recession, or two quarters of negative growth, in April-September, with a third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) reading due on November 14.
Comments