Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- German unemployment fell more than economists forecast in September as machine makers hired people to work off an order backlog.
The number of workers without jobs, adjusted for seasonal swings, dropped by 29,000 to 3.18 million after falling 40,000 in August, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said today. Economists expected a decline of 15,000, according to the median in a Bloomberg News survey of 39 forecasts. The unemployment rate held at 7.6 percent, the lowest level in 16 years.
Germany's economy, Europe's largest, may have grown in the third quarter, averting a recession, the DIHK chambers of commerce and industry said, Bild newspaper reported yesterday. Still, business confidence dropped to the lowest level in more than three years this month, suggesting companies may invest less in machinery and staff amid the financial-market turmoil.
``Companies' scope to absorb new workers looks robust,'' Eckart Tuchtfeld, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said in an interview. ``Still, the boom days of declining unemployment are ending. There's no immunity from economic realities.''
ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a car parts maker, plans to create 4,000 new jobs this year and next, as demand for lighter, environment-friendly products grows, company Chairman Hans-Georg Haerter said at the IAA car show in Hanover this month.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=a9y8WZrhf5Cw&refer=economy
The number of workers without jobs, adjusted for seasonal swings, dropped by 29,000 to 3.18 million after falling 40,000 in August, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said today. Economists expected a decline of 15,000, according to the median in a Bloomberg News survey of 39 forecasts. The unemployment rate held at 7.6 percent, the lowest level in 16 years.
Germany's economy, Europe's largest, may have grown in the third quarter, averting a recession, the DIHK chambers of commerce and industry said, Bild newspaper reported yesterday. Still, business confidence dropped to the lowest level in more than three years this month, suggesting companies may invest less in machinery and staff amid the financial-market turmoil.
``Companies' scope to absorb new workers looks robust,'' Eckart Tuchtfeld, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said in an interview. ``Still, the boom days of declining unemployment are ending. There's no immunity from economic realities.''
ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a car parts maker, plans to create 4,000 new jobs this year and next, as demand for lighter, environment-friendly products grows, company Chairman Hans-Georg Haerter said at the IAA car show in Hanover this month.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=a9y8WZrhf5Cw&refer=economy
