Winter break causes number of unemployed to rise in December

Created: 01/03/2023Updated: 01/03/2023 10:11 am

Construction workers on a construction site in Frankfurt.

© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa

The German labor market is still reacting relatively stably to the economic uncertainties.

But according to the latest figures, short-time work has recently increased again.

Nuremberg – The number of unemployed in Germany rose to 2.454 million in December 2022 due to seasonal factors.

That was 20,000 more than in November and 124,000 more than a year ago, the Federal Employment Agency announced on Tuesday in Nuremberg.

The unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 5.4 percent compared to the previous month.

"Unemployment increased in December, as is usual this month, with the start of the winter break," said Andrea Nahles, chair of the agency's board of directors.

In December, the number of unemployed usually increases because, among other reasons, fixed-term contracts usually expire at the end of the year and companies are hiring fewer new employees in the month.

Adjusted for seasonal influences, the number of unemployed fell by 13,000.

For its December statistics, the Federal Agency used data that was available up to December 14th.

Without the Ukrainian refugees, unemployment would have fallen compared to the previous year.

The authority recently paid noticeably more short-time work benefits in the wake of the economic uncertainties.

Current data on actual utilization is available through October 2022.

According to this, 163,000 employees received short-time work benefits this month.

From December 1st to December 28th, companies announced short-time work for 91,000 employees.

dpa