Spring revival on a back burner: Unemployment figures move only minimally

The number of unemployed people in Germany decreased by 27,000 in May compared to April, bringing the total to 2.723 million. Despite this decline, the number of unemployed remains 179,000 higher compared to May of the previous year, reported the Federal Employment Agency (BA) in Nuremberg. The unemployment rate dropped by 0.2 percentage points to 5.8 percent. BA Chief Andrea Nahles commented on this moderate decline by stating: "The spring revival has not really gained momentum this year." Although both unemployment and underemployment have also decreased, they did not do so to the same extent as in most previous years. Seasonally adjusted, the number of unemployed actually increased by 25,000 compared to the previous month. The demand for labor also showed a declining trend. In May, the Federal Employment Agency recorded 702,000 job vacancies, a decrease of 65,000 compared to the same month last year. However, the high level of employees subject to social security contributions remains positive: their number decreased slightly by 3,000 from February to March but increased by 134,000 over the year to a total of 34.81 million. According to the statistics experts, this increase is solely due to foreign employees. Fewer companies felt compelled to register for cyclical short-time work in May. From May 1 to 28, employers applied for short-time work for 46,000 employees, a decrease of one quarter compared to the previous month. It remains to be seen how many companies will actually implement short-time work. Preliminary extrapolated data from the BA for March show that 219,000 employees received short-time work benefits in that month, compared to 200,000 in February and 189,000 in January.