As usual, spring has stimulated the labor market – but not as much as usual in March. The unemployment rate fell slightly to 6.0 percent. Employment agency boss Nahles was satisfied with the development.
In March, fewer people were registered as unemployed in Germany than in February. According to the Federal Employment Agency, unemployment fell by 45,000 to 2.769 million people – an effect of the spring recovery. Compared to March of last year, there were 176,000 more unemployed people.
“Unemployment and underemployment did decrease in March, but less than usual this month. The economic downturn is still noticeable on the labor market. Overall, however, it continues to hold up relatively well,” explained the Federal Agency’s CEO, Andrea Nahles. The unemployment rate fell slightly by 0.1 percentage points to 6.0 percent – it was 0.3 points higher compared to the previous year.
More than 700,000 open positions
707,000 vacancies were reported to the Federal Agency in March, 70,000 fewer than a year ago. When it comes to short-time work, companies reported short-time work for 48,000 people for the period from March 1st to 24th. That is 10,000 fewer than in the same period last month.
Regarding the current situation on the labor market, the Federal Agency announced that 317,000 applicants for training positions had registered with employment agencies and job centers between October and March. In March, 190,000 of them had not yet found a training position or an alternative. However, the training market is still very much in flux, it was said.
unemployment should continue to decline
In their joint forecast for the federal government, the leading German economic research institutes expect that unemployment will continue to fall in the second half of 2024 as the economy improves. All in all, the institutes expect an average unemployment rate of 5.8 percent this year and 5.5 percent next year.
Birgit Harprath, BR, tagesschau, March 28, 2024 11:00 a.m