The number of unemployed in Germany rose to 2.330 million in December, as is typical of the season.
That is 12,000 more than in November, but 378,000 less than in December 2020, announced the Federal Employment Agency on Tuesday in Nuremberg.
The unemployment rate remained stable at 5.1 percent.
The Federal Employment Agency 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," he emphasized. Unemployment and underemployment decreased again in December, seasonally adjusted. According to this, the number of unemployed fell by a seasonally adjusted 23,000 - so still significantly, but not quite as strongly as in the months before. For the December statistics, the Federal Agency took into account data that were available up to December 13th.
However, short-time work increased again in December.
From December 1st through December 27th, companies - especially in the hospitality and retail sectors - reported short-time working for 286,000 people.
As a rule, short-time working is not actually used for every advertisement.
For November, the federal agency had reported advertisements for 104,000 people.
How much short-time work was actually used is available up to October.
In that month, 710,000 people were paid short-time working benefits - a further decrease.
At its peak, the Federal Agency had to pay short-time work benefits for almost six million people in Germany in the first lockdown of the corona pandemic in April 2020.