Thursday 29th July 2021 - 09:18 (BST)
The German economy continues to show green shoots of recovery following its third-straight monthly decline in unemployment. Figures released by the German Statistics Office showed the overall unemployment rate fell to 5.7% during July as Europe’s biggest economy benefitted from a sharp reduction in coronavirus infections and the re-opening of more parts of society.
This represents a 91,000 person decline in seasonally adjusted numbers and is one of the biggest falls in German history. Considerably beating the 28,000 fall expected, it follows another record improvement over June and moves the country further away from its peak unemployment in April 2020.
Companies are also making less use of the country’s furlough program, which helped millions of workers hang on to their jobs during the pandemic. The number of people in short-time work declined to 2.2 million in July from 2.5 million June.
The readings come against a backdrop of increasing global demand for goods and services that have seen record rebounds in manufacturing, service and private sector activity across Europe.
Attentions now turn to German inflation readings a little later today, along with preliminary estimates for Q2 GDP across the EU tomorrow. Analysts are expecting a robust second quarter, with record growth predicted within Germany, France and Spain.
