German jobless rises

December 5, 2001 Posted: 1126 GMT

LONDON (CNN) -- German unemployment rose by 17,000 in November due to more corporate job cuts and a slowing economy.

The unadjusted unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent, compared with 9 percent in October, the Labour Office said on Wednesday. The unadjusted jobless total was 3.789 million, up 143,732 from November 2000.

In the latest round of job losses, Germany's ninth largest bank Bankgesellschaft Berlin last week said it would cut 4,000 jobs and energy trader Enron Europe told most of its 5,000 strong staff they had been made redundant.

"The global growth slowdown is having a particularly strong effect on western Germany due to the concentration of industry there," Labour Office President Bernhard Jagoda said.

Economists say that Germany's export-led economy would come under increasing pressure from slack external demand as the U.S., Asia and Europe also suffer from slowdowns.

Seasonally adjusted unemployment rose in November by 17,000 from the previous month, slightly below analysts' expectations.

German companies have made massive job cuts as the economy slows with analysts predicting more job cuts after German third-quarter GDP statistics last month showed the world's third largest economy contracted 0.1 percent compared with the second quarter of 2001.

While the November figure is below analysts' expectations of a rise of 23,000, analysts said the trend of rising unemployment in Europe's biggest economy remained intact.

"The November seasonally adjusted figure was much better than we expected, but this will probably be only a temporary slowdown in the rise in jobless numbers and does not mark the start of a turnaround," Manuela Preuschl of Deutsche Bank told Reuters.

"I still expect a strong rise in unemployment in January and I think we won't see any real improvement until the end of next year or even the start of 2003," Preuschl said.