DUnemployment in Germany rose sharply in June. As the Federal Employment Agency (BA) announced on Thursday, the number of unemployed increased by 103,000 to 2.363 million. The unemployment rate – which had just fallen below the five percent mark for the first time since the pandemic began – climbed 0.3 points to 5.2 percent.
According to BA CEO Detlef Scheele, the main reason for this development is that Ukrainian refugees have been entitled to Hartz IV basic security since the beginning of the month and are therefore the responsibility of the job center. Many of them are now officially registered as unemployed. They had previously received asylum seeker benefits.
Overall, the job market remains stable, said Scheele. Unemployment typically falls in June before picking up again in July and August due to the summer break. However, the number of unemployed is still 251,000 lower than a year ago. Underemployment, which also includes people who are taking part in further training or who are ill, rose in June by a seasonally adjusted 124,000 to 3.115 million.
More than 220,000 Ukrainian refugees registered in job centers
According to the BA’s internal data, available to FAZ.NET, more than 220,000 refugees from Ukraine have so far registered with employment agencies and job centers. Most of them – around 172,000 – are women. The focus is now on the registration and initial consultation of these people.
The local employment agencies expect that unemployment will continue to rise in the coming months due to the change of refugees from Ukraine to basic security. This is shown by a leading indicator from the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB), which belongs to the Federal Employment Agency. In June, it fell more than it had since the pandemic began.
However, IAB research department head Enzo Weber sees no reason to worry. “Despite the tense overall economic situation, the employment prospects remain good because the labor market is absorbing,” he said. Weber pointed out that many companies have great difficulty filling vacancies. This offers an opportunity for the integration of the refugee Ukrainians into the labor market.
In fact, according to preliminary calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, the number of people in work continued to rise in May – more recent figures are not yet available: by a seasonally adjusted 34,000 or 0.1 percent to 45.4 million. Since the spring of 2021, employment has been growing “largely unaffected by further waves of infection and, so far, by the consequences of the war in Ukraine,” the statisticians said. It is now 0.3 percent above the pre-corona level.
