Unemployment in Germany fell further in February.

As the Federal Employment Agency announced on Wednesday in Nuremberg, 2.428 million people were unemployed last month, 34,000 fewer than a month earlier.

This means that the number of unemployed is not far from its pre-crisis level: it is only 32,000 higher than in February 2020, the month before the start of the Corona crisis in Germany.

Britta Beeger

Editor in Business.

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"The labor market continued its upward trend until February," said Detlef Scheele, CEO of the Federal Employment Agency.

However, he pointed out that the current data does not yet reflect the war in Ukraine.

The figures for the labor market statistics are usually collected in the middle of the month.

Many experts expect that because of the war, energy prices will rise more sharply, since Germany imports a lot of oil and gas from Russia.

This puts a strain on companies and consumers' wallets and could have an impact on the economic upswing and thus also on the labor market.

In February, inflation in Germany rose to 5.1 percent, as the Federal Statistical Office has just announced after an initial estimate

Even seasonally adjusted, i.e. after factoring out the typical seasonal fluctuations, unemployment fell again significantly in February: by 33,000.

The number of people in employment is also approaching its pre-crisis level despite the ongoing Omicron wave.

It was around 45 million in January.

This means that only 0.2 percent or 96,000 fewer people were employed than in February 2020, shortly before the pandemic began.

Employment subject to social security contributions had recently even exceeded the pre-crisis level and reached a record value.

Because of the Omikron wave, however, many employees in Germany are still on short-time work.

After the companies had registered short-time work for around 300,000 employees with the employment agencies in December and January, there were again more than 200,000 between February 1st and 24th.

The advertisements come mainly from the manufacturing industry, the hospitality industry and trade.

Current data on actual utilization is available up to December of last year.

According to preliminary extrapolated data from the Federal Employment Agency, short-time work benefits were paid to 641,000 employees this month


.

In the spring of 2020 it was around six million.