Germany – Employment growth looses momentum but unemployment still falls

In September 2012, a total of 41.8 million persons were in employment whose place of residence was in Germany, according to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). The number of persons in employment was thus by 324,000 above the level of September 2011, which is an increase of 0.8%. Employment growth on the preceding year continued in September 2012 with ebbing momentum: the relative increase on the same month of the previous year had amounted to 1.4% in January 2012 and fallen by 0.6 percentage points by the current reference month. The number of unemployed was some 2.20 million persons in September 2012, which is a decline of about 48,000 from September 2011.

According to provisional results of employment accounts, the number of persons in employment rose by 208,000 or 0.5% in September 2012 on August 2012 with the beginning of the autumn upturn. In the past five years, the number of persons in employment had risen by an average 280,000 from August to September. After seasonal adjustment, that is, after the elimination of the usual seasonal fluctuations, there was a slight decrease of 15,000 people compared with August 2012.

via Press releases – September 2012: employment growth looses momentum – Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).