Status: 04.01.2022 10:26 a.m.
Despite Corona, the labor market continued to develop well. The unemployment rate was also in December at 5.1 percent. However, there was an increase in short-time working – especially in retail and catering.
The number of unemployed in Germany rose in December – to 2.330 million. That is 12,000 more than in November, but 378,000 less than in December 2020, announced the Federal Employment Agency. The unemployment rate remained stable at 5.1 percent.
“Recovery in recent months continued”
The Federal Employment Agency (BA) attributed the increase mainly to seasonal effects. The labor market developed well towards the end of the year, said the chairman of the board of the federal agency, Detlef Scheele. “The recovery of the last few months has thus continued.”
However, the corona pandemic is casting a shadow. “The advertisements for short-time work rose sharply in December,” said Scheele. According to this, short-time working was announced for 286,000 people by December 27, mainly in the hospitality and retail sectors. As a rule, short-time working is not actually used for every advertisement.
KfW economist: outlook “highly uncertain”
Economists also emphasized that the recovery on the labor market was still on “shaky foundations” in view of the expanding Omikron variant. The fact that over 800,000 vacancies are currently registered with the BA – more than in three years – is “encouraging”, says KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler Geib. The new virus mutant will, however, become another tough test for the German economy. The prospects for the economy and the labor market are therefore “extremely uncertain” for the next few months.