Text 9492, 81 rader
Skriven 2005-03-01 21:46:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Jobless rate
====================
It will get worse before it gets better..


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4307303.stm

German jobless rate at new record


More than 5.2 million Germans were out of work in February, new figures show.
The figure of 5.216 million people, or 12.6% of the working-age population, is
the highest jobless rate in Europe's biggest economy since the 1930s.

The news comes as the head of Germany's panel of government economic advisers
predicted growth would again stagnate.

Speaking on German TV, Bert Ruerup said the panel's earlier forecast of 1.4%
was too optimistic and warned growth would be just 1% in 2005.

"Do something!"

The growth warning triggered anger even from government supporters, who said
the Social Democrat-Green administration of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had to
do more.

"We are not going to create more jobs with growth of 1%," Harald Schartau, head
of the Social Democrats in the northern state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told
ZDF television.

"We say to our friends in Berlin, you have to persevere and create more impulse
for growth."

Many German newspapers had the figures a day ahead, splashing them with angry
headlines on Tuesday morning.



The mass-market Bild tabloid used red type to splash the phrase, "Do
something!" across its front page.

Anger

The German government insists its efforts to tackle the stubbornly-high levels
of joblessness with a range of labour market reforms are only just getting
under way.

The core is the "Hartz-IV" programme introduced in January to shake up welfare
benefits and push people back into work - even if some of the jobs are heavily
subsidised.

According to the Federal Labour Office, the changes have contributed to the
rise in the official unemployment rate.

Some three quarters of February's 180,000 additions to the jobless total were
the result of January's reclassification, it said - although it acknowledged
the weak economy and cold weather hitting the construction industry were also
to blame.

Different numbers

Still, some measures suggest the picture is not quite so bleak.

For one thing, January's reclassification boosted the jobless total by more
than 500,000 that month, as many benefit claimants were added to the list for
the first time thanks to the new rules.

Moreover, adjustments for seasonal changes give an overall unemployment level
of 4.875 million people or 11.7% - admittedly up 0.3 percentage points from the
previous month.

And the most internationally-accepted methodology, designed by the
International Labour Organisation (ILO), says Germany had 3.97 million people
out of work in January.

The ILO defines an unemployed person as someone who in the previous four weeks
had actively looked for work they could take up immediately.

ILO-based figures also suggest that 14,000 new net jobs were created that
month, taking the number of people employed to 38.9 million.

--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10
 * Origin:  (1:226/600)