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Bloomberg
German unemployment fell to a fresh record low as companies in Europe’s largest economy stepped up hiring to work through backlogs even amid signs of slowing growth.
The jobless rate dropped to 5.2% in May, Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said on Wednesday. The number of people out of work fell by a seasonally adjusted 11,000 to 2.358 million, exceeding the decline of 10,000 predicted in a Bloomberg survey.
The country’s export-oriented economy has benefited from a global recovery and is forecast to see the strongest annual expansion in 7 years in 2018, but recent data from the wider euro area hint at a loss of momentum. While the slowdown has been attributed to temporary factors like weather and sickness, a report last week showed new orders rose at the weakest rate in almost three years in May.
That could indicate underlying demand is cooling. Even so, Germany’s Bundesbank said in its monthly report that growth will probably pick up again as company investments are set to increase further, and that private cons- umption will continue to expand markedly thanks to the solid labor market.