Thursday, October 28, 2021
Corona crisis is losing its effect
Unemployment falls significantly in October
The labor market in Germany is recovering noticeably from the Corona crisis: In October, around 380,000 fewer people are unemployed than in the same period of 2020. In total, only 2.38 million unemployed are registered in Germany. The situation on the training market is less positive.
The number of unemployed in Germany fell sharply to 2.377 million in October thanks to a sustained autumn recovery. That is 88,000 fewer than in September and 383,000 fewer than in October last year, as the Federal Employment Agency announced. The unemployment rate fell by 0.2 points to 5.2 percent in October. For its statistics, the Federal Agency took into account data that were received by October 12th.
“The consequences of the corona crisis on the labor market are still visible, but are getting smaller,” said the chief executive of the federal agency, Detlef Scheele. “Unemployment and underemployment are falling sharply, employment and business demand for new staff are increasing, and short-time working continues to decline,” he said.
Between October 1 and October 24, companies registered short-time work for 93,000 people. How much of it is actually used will only be decided later. The latest actual consumption data is from August. In that month, the Federal Agency paid short-time work benefits for 760,000 people. This is significantly less than at the height of the corona pandemic, when almost six million people in Germany were on short-time work.
Scheele was not satisfied with the situation on the training market. “Despite brightening, the results are still very much behind those before the pandemic and we are still facing major challenges,” he said. In the past twelve months, 511,300 apprenticeship positions had been reported to the job centers and employment agencies, 19,000 fewer than in the same period of the previous year. In contrast, 433,500 applicants took advantage of advice from the job centers and agencies – 39,400 fewer than in the same period of the previous year.