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Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - The corona pandemic is again having stronger consequences for the labor market in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The usual fall in unemployment in February did not materialize this year.
"So we are only experiencing a mediocre start into spring," said the head of the NRW regional directorate of the Federal Employment Agency, Torsten Withake, on Tuesday.
Overall, however, the NRW labor market “continued to be robust and resilient”.
In the most populous federal state, 770,328 people were registered as unemployed in February, around 1,800 more than in January.
The unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.9 percent.
Compared to February 2020, there were almost 116,000 more unemployed.
This corresponds to a year-on-year increase of 17.7 percent.
In January, this corona effect was still 16.5 percent, previously the rate had fallen over five months.
At the same time, almost a third fewer new jobs were reported in February than in previous years at this time of the year, reported the regional directorate.
A clear impact of the pandemic is that "the chances are lower than in previous years to find a new job once you have become unemployed," explained Withake.
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The head of the regional directorate sees the growing number of long-term unemployed in North Rhine-Westphalia as a challenge.
Compared to the previous year, their number has increased by around 81,000.
A total of around 324,000 people have now been unemployed for more than a year.
"2017 was the last time so many people in North Rhine-Westphalia were unemployed for more than a year," said Withake.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210302-99-651854 / 3