|
 |
 | | | | | |||||||||||||||||||||
| | You are in: Business | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 | | Tuesday, 7 May, 2002, 09:12 GMT 10:12 UK Germany jobless total edges higher  The jobless rise was worse than expected German unemployment has risen unexpectedly, indicating that the economic recovery is still some distance away. The seasonally adjusted jobless figure rose by 6,000 to 3.97 million. That dented any hopes that the country's economic recovery had led to improvements in the labour market. The rise followed a fall of 8,000 in March, underlining the erratic nature of the slow economic upturn, officials said. Striking workers The more closely followed unadjusted figure fell by 132,000 to 4.024m or 9.7% of the workforce. The Labour Office has said that April's total will fall below the four million mark.
The figures were published as Germany's first big engineering and metalworking strike for seven years entered a second day. The powerful IG Metall union is trying to win pay rises of 6.5% for 3.6 million workers after two years of wage restraint. The rise in unemployment is a blow to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has made unemployment a key part of his re-election bid. The Labour Office said that a turnaround in Germany's economic prospects would now not happen until the second half of the year. That will be too late to help Mr Schroeder's bid for another term in office. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Business stories now:  Links to more Business stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
Links to more Business stories |
 | | ^^ Back to top News Front Page | World | UK | UK Politics | Business | Sci/Tech | Health | Education | Entertainment | Talking Point | In Depth | AudioVideo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To BBC Sport>> | To BBC Weather>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII|News Sources|Privacy  |
E-mail this story to a friend