German jobless rate remains at record low

The German jobless rate remained at a record low level in March, official data showed on Thursday.

Adjusted for calendar and seasonal swings, the number of unemployed people in Germany stood at 2.73 million in March, unchanged from the level in February when unemployment fell for the fifth consecutive month, said the German Federal Employment Agency (BA).

The German jobless rate stayed at 6.2 percent, the lowest since Germany's reunification.

"The labor market has further developed positively," said Frank-Juergen Weise, head of the BA.

Germany has the strongest labor market in the eurozone. It helps drive Europe's biggest economy as German companies are increasingly relying on demand from home.

A stable labor market, weak inflation, low interest rates and falling energy prices spurred consumers to spend. In February, retail sales increased by 5.4 percent year on year, said German federal statistics office Destatis on Thursday.

Experts at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin expected the economy to expand by 0.5 percent in the first quarter with private consumption as a pillar of growth.

However, economists feared that the influx of refugees, over one million last year, could push up the unemployment rate in Germany as most of the newcomers would not be integrated into the labor market in the near future.

A panel of the German government's economic advisers said earlier this month that refugee migration was a major challenge for Germany's economic policy. They estimated that about 360,000 refugees would enter the labor market by the end of 2017, while "a large part of them will initially be unemployed." Endit