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The Week in Germany: Business and Technology November 3, 2006 German Unemployment Dips below 10 Percent Mark The Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg reported this week that the number of unemployed in Germany fell by 153,000 to 4,085,000 in October. The unemployment rate fell to 9.8 percent, the lowest it has been in four years.
Economists from the Federal Labor Agency said that the usual autumn upturn and unusually warm weather this fall contributed to the positive developments on the labor market. This month’s good news reflects the continuation of a steady downward trend in unemployment figures; in September, 134,000 Germans left the unemployment rolls. The current figures represent a reduction of 471,000 from last year at this time. Labor minister Franz Münterfering greeted the news as an important victory, saying that even “notorious complainers and killjoys” could no longer deny the fact that the economic recovery had reached the labor market, the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported. Bavarian state premier Edmund Stoiber took the good news as an occasion
to renew calls for a reduction in contributions to mandatory unemployment
insurance funds, and also said that the labor statistics were further
evidence that the change in government a year ago was beginning to bear
fruit. The center-right alliance of his CSU and Angela Merkel’s
CDU entered into the governing coalition with the center-left SPD last
November. Links:
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