The unemployment rate in Germany remained stable at 6.1% in December, at the end of a second year of economic depression which weighed on the job market, according to an estimate published Friday. The number of unemployed people increased by 10,000 month-on-month, lower than expected, although the winter break generally has a negative impact on the labor market, according to seasonally adjusted data (CVS) published by the Employment Agency. Analysts surveyed by Factset for their part expected an unemployment rate increasing to 6.2%, with 17,500 more people registered as unemployed in December.
Over the whole of 2024, the persistent sluggishness of Europe’s largest economy has, however, “left deep marks on the labor market”commented the president of the Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles, in a press release, even if the unemployment rate remained stable, at a relatively low level. In raw data, less representative of an underlying trend but which serves as a reference in public debate, the number of unemployed increased by 33,000 in December over one month, to 2.81 million people. And the annual unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points between 2023 and 2024, still in raw data.
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An increase in unemployment of 29% since 2019
The upward trend is even more significant in the long term, notes Martin Müller, expert at the public bank KfW. “Since the last low point in November 2019, the number of unemployed has increased by 627,000, an increase of 29%. Over the same period, the number of long-term unemployed increased even more sharply, by 41% (…). In 2025, the number of unemployed is expected to increase further.he writes. The German economy has been struggling for two years and no rapid recovery is in sight, according to economists. The Federal Bank of Germany has sharply lowered its economic growth forecasts for 2025 and 2026.
-These difficulties are at the top of the concerns of voters called to the polls on February 23 for early legislative elections. These elections, triggered by the breakup of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, come when Germany has not “never experienced such a long and difficult crisis” since World War II, according to German economist Bert Rürup, in an interview with the popular daily newspaper Bild.
The unemployment rate remains contained for the moment in a country which had around 46.1 million active people in 2024, a record figure since reunification in 1990, the Statistics Office Destatis said on Thursday. The number of active workers increased by 72,000 people compared to 2023, an increase of 0.2%. Job gains were mainly in services, while manufacturing and construction lost jobs, according to Destatis. Many industrial sectors, such as chemicals and automobiles, are still planning job reductions in 2025, according to a survey published at the end of December by the IW economic institute.
