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German joblessness falls
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February 8, 2000: 8:19 a.m. ET
January unemployment down 33,000, on seasonal basis; growth seen 'on track'
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LONDON (CNNfn) - German unemployment shrank in January as a strong dollar helped create jobs by boosting exports in the key automotive, chemical and engineering sectors, official economic data released Tuesday disclosed.
Economists said the data underscore a sense that Europe's largest economy is back on track for moderate but accelerating growth.
The number of unemployed in Germany fell by a seasonally adjusted 33,000 to 3.959 million in January, marking a further decline following December's 72,000 drop, according to the Federal Labor Office. Calculated on an unadjusted basis, however, joblessness in January was up slightly at 4.293 million, yielding an unemployment rate of 11 percent, up slightly from 10.3 percent in December.
Marco Kramer, a global economist with Paribas in Frankfurt, said the January numbers, while perhaps unimpressive compared with the December drop, would reassure economists who may have had some doubts about the durability of Germany's economic rebound following weak manufacturing order data last week that was compounded by a soft purchasing managers index.
"We are now back on track for the German recovery," Kramer said, noting that the January decline was the fourth consecutive month of improvement.
Labor Office President Berhard Jagoda attributed the unadjusted increase in January to seasonal factors, especially the fact that joblessness tends to rise in the winter months, when colder weather limits activity in key sectors such as construction.
The data, taken on a seasonally-adjusted basis, showed a sharp rift between levels of unemployment in the relatively prosperous western section of the country, and the eastern area, which is yet to overcome the economic legacy of its Soviet-controlled past.
The west German labor market reported a 20,000 drop in joblessness in January for a seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate of 8.3 percent. The unemployment rate in the east, by contrast, was 17.5 percent, down 13,000 from December.
Rising exports were cited as for the buoyant employment picture in critical exporting industries such as the chemical, engineering and automotive sectors.
Jagoda said 15 percent fewer people lost their jobs in western Germany's manufacturing sector in January than in the year-ago month. That percentage rose to 28 percent in the chemicals sector, 25 percent in engineering and 26 percent in the automobile industry. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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