Germany's Jobless Rate Falls in May

According to figures released on Tuesday by the Federal Labor Office in Nuremberg, May saw Germany's jobless rate fall to 10.3 percent from 10.7 percent the month before. Some 4.293 million people were out of work in May, 50,000 fewer than the same period a year ago and 150,200 fewer than in April. In western Germany, some 2.709 million registered as unemployed with the job office, compared to 1.583 million in eastern Germany, where the unemployment rate is 18.3 percent. According to Associated Press, Frank-Jurgen Weise, head of the Federal Labor Office, attributed the change to seasonal trends and said that "economic growth is still too weak to give an impulse to the job markets." He pointed out that adjusted for long-term seasonal trends, joblessness was actually up by 9,000 in May over the previous month, after rising by 23,000 in April.