Unemployment fall to record low in Germany: study

BERLIN, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The monthly number of the unemployed in Germany has fallen to a record low, official figures published on Thursday by the Federal Labor Office showed.

The Nuremburg-based government agency estimated the seasonally-adjusted number of inhabitants registered as unemployed to be 2.373 million in March 2018, marking a decline of 19,000 compared with February. The non-adjusted tally of 2.458 million unemployed Germans was the lowest number recorded since German reunification in 1989.

On an annual basis, unemployment declined by 204,000 individuals in March while the official unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage points to 5.5 percent. "The positive development of the labor market has continued throughout March", a statement by Federal Labor agency director Detlef Scheele read.

Scheele pointed out that unemployment and underemployment had both fallen during the course of the month. Additionally, the number of Germans in more secure socially-insured work was still rising and demand for labor remained very high. Some 778,000 job vacancies were registered at the Federal Labor Agency in March, an increase of 86,000 from the same period last year.

According to figures provided by the Federal Statistical Office there were 44.32 million Germans in work in February (plus 45,000 compared with January). The increase was entirely due to growing stable employment in socially-insured jobs. Enditem