German unemployment declined again in April for the 27th month in a row. However the number of people out of work, adjusted for seasonal swings, only fell by 7,000 from March to 3.3 million, according to data from the Federal Labor Agency published today. According to the stats office computer problems lead to between 15,000 and 20,000 unemployed people who had come off the rolls not being counted, so the decline is really higher, but still this is a lot slower than in recent months, and does appear to suggest that the German job creation machine may be slowing. If this was the case it would be consistent with other data we have been seeing.
Joblessness has now dropped every month since January 2006. The Economy Ministry expects unadjusted unemployment to shrink to 3.27 million this year from 3.77 million in 2007. Employment rose 55,000 this month to 39.92 million, the Labor Agency said. The adjusted unemployment rate was at 7.9 percent in April and the ILO equivalent rate was a 7.3% in March (this data is published with a one month delay).
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