Jobless rate lowest in six years

NUREMBERG, Germany -- Unemployment in Germany fell in October to its lowest in six years.

The seasonally adjusted figure was down by 25,000 last month, the Federal Labour Office said on Tuesday.

The drop -- slightly more than analysts had been expecting -- means the jobless rate now stands at 8.9 per cent, compared to 9.0 percent in September. Data showed it last hit this level in November 1994.

The number of people out of work, not adjusted to take seasonal factors into account, fell 73,813 to 3.611 million.

Bernhard Jagoda, the president of the Labour Office, based in Nuremberg, said the improved figures were largely due to job-creation schemes.

In the text of a speech, Jagoda said the fall in the number of jobless came mainly in the more prosperous western states.

In western Germany, the number of people out of work on a seasonally adjusted basis fell 23,000 in October, while formerly Communist eastern Germany, where unemployment is much higher, saw the adjusted number of jobless fall just 3,000.

Independent analysts say they expect the unemployment figure to continue to fall.

"We expect that for the average of 2000, unemployment will be down 220,000 from last year after the number of unemployed in 1999 had fallen by 173,000," said Lothar Hessler, an economist at Trinkaus and Burkhardt.

"The improvement is likely to continue next year but it will again not be very impressive. Unemployment is falling as a result of demographic factors -- fewer young people entering the labour market and more older people going into retirement -- and also due to the economic recovery."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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