German Unemployment Rises Unexpectedly

(RTTNews) - German unemployment increased unexpectedly in June as the Ukrainian refugees are added in job centers as people searching for jobs, official data showed on Thursday.

The number of people out of work increased sharply by 133,000 from May, when employment declined by 5,000, data published by the Federal Employment Agency reported. Economists had forecast another fall of 6,000.

The jobless rate rose to 5.3 percent in June, the highest since November. The rate was forecast to remain unchanged at 5.0 percent.

The labor market as a whole continues to be stable, Detlef Scheele, head of the agency said in the statement.

Unemployment and underemployment increased sharply in June due to the fact that the Ukrainian refugees are now being recorded in the job centers and are therefore visible in the labor market statistics, Scheele said.

In May, the number of unemployed decreased by 13,500 from April to 1.24 million, the labor force survey results from Destatis showed. The jobless rate dropped to an adjusted 2.8 percent from 2.9 percent in April. On an unadjusted basis, the unemployment rate came in at 2.7 percent in May versus 3.7 percent in the same period last year.

Data released by Eurostat showed that the euro area unemployment rate dropped to a new record low of 6.6 percent in May from revised 6.7 percent in April.

While the eurozone economy is already slowing significantly, the labour market's traditional lag keeps the unemployment outlook quite rosy for the coming period, ING economist Bert Colijn said.