Jobs growth in resurgent Germany as rest of Eurozone continues to flounder
EMPLOYMENT in Germany has reached its highest level since reunification – yet in other Eurozone countries, employment continues to fall, official data showed yesterday.
In October 40.9m people were at work in the country, as the German recovery surges forwards.
The number is up 405,000 on the previous year, an increase of one per cent, announced the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis).
And German unemployment for November dropped to its lowest level since December 1992.
The news strongly contrasted with a weak labour market across the Eurozone, where unemployment rose to 10.1 per cent, up from 10 per cent in September – the highest rate since 1998, according to Barclays Capital Research.
There are now almost 16m unemployed people in the single-currency area, the EU’s Eurostat office announced.
However, there are huge differences between unemployment rates among various members of the Euro.
In troubled Spain unemployment now totals 20.7 per cent according to the EU, while countries such as the Netherlands (4.4 per cent) and Austria (4.8 per cent) have rates well below the average.
Inflation remains consistent across the Eurozone, the data showed, sticking at 1.9 per cent in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI).