BBC World News:

German jobless rate at new record
Unemployment in Germany is at record levels


More than 5.2 million Germans were out of work in February, new figures show.

The figure of 5.216 million people, or 12.6% of the working-age population, is the highest jobless rate in Europe's biggest economy since the 1930s.

The news comes as the head of Germany's panel of government economic advisers predicted growth would again stagnate.

Speaking on German TV, Bert Ruerup said the panel's earlier forecast of 1.4% was too optimistic and warned growth would be just 1% in 2005.

"Do something!"

The growth warning triggered anger even from government supporters, who said the Social Democrat-Green administration of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had to do more.

"We are not going to create more jobs with growth of 1%," Harald Schartau, head of the Social Democrats in the northern state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told ZDF television.

"We say to our friends in Berlin, you have to persevere and create more impulse for growth."

Many German newspapers had the figures a day ahead, splashing them with angry headlines on Tuesday morning.

Mr Schroeder has staked his career on labour reforms
The mass-market Bild tabloid used red type to splash the phrase, "Do something!" across its front page.

Anger

The German government insists its efforts to tackle the stubbornly-high levels of joblessness with a range of labour market reforms are only just getting under way.

The core is the "Hartz-IV" programme introduced in January to shake up welfare benefits and push people back into work - even if some of the jobs are heavily subsidised.

According to the Federal Labour Office, the changes have contributed to the rise in the official unemployment rate.

Some three quarters of February's 180,000 additions to the jobless total were the result of January's reclassification, it said - although it acknowledged the weak economy and cold weather hitting the construction industry were also to blame.

Different numbers

Still, some measures suggest the picture is not quite so bleak.

For one thing, January's reclassification boosted the jobless total by more than 500,000 that month, as many benefit claimants were added to the list for the first time thanks to the new rules.

Moreover, adjustments for seasonal changes give an overall unemployment level of 4.875 million people or 11.7% - admittedly up 0.3 percentage points from the previous month.

And the most internationally-accepted methodology, designed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), says Germany had 3.97 million people out of work in January.

The ILO defines an unemployed person as someone who in the previous four weeks had actively looked for work they could take up immediately.

ILO-based figures also suggest that 14,000 new net jobs were created that month, taking the number of people employed to 38.9 million.

Good for them. Say, what's unemployment like in France these days?

Go Europe.

Give the Cheney Administration another 4 years, we'll see if they can top or near Germany. They've already set a major record here in the United States in there just 4 years

What major record? Are you on this planet, are you in America? The unemployment rate is 5.2% and falling in America. Not too far from Slick Willy's marks.

Again, how's the employment picture in the rest of Europe of look? How about the rest of the industrialized world?

WHY DO I WASTE MY TIME!? I think it's for the fun of linking stuff that you'll probably ignore as not being from whatever preconcieved sites you only visit. But this is what I'm referring to:

The Cheney Administration presided over the loss of approximately three million American jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.

Now I'm sure you can blame that anyway you want on whatever you want, and then we could debate the lack of support the Federal Government gave to airline workers and many other various corporations that went belly up along with some random outsourcing. That aside, yes I'm in America and on Earth, I do at times after reading your posts ponder the Earth part about you. Your lack of obvious basic facts is overwhelming uncanny to posters on this board, with MERKINBALL and VOODOOCHILD as exceptions. I'll leave it at that, and hope to not be suckered into replying to you again, but I'm sure I shall outta joy of posting on this board soley because of your lack of care to what I say.

Great article you should definetly read but I'm sure never will. It's Historians vs. George W. Bush Jr.: http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html

I'd love a concise 2 paragraph essay on how the president is directly responsible for job losses or gains.

Why should tax payers bail out companies that are run poorly and go out of business?

It's too bad you weren't around in the 1930's . . .

Europe's stock market has been exceeding the US's the last 2 years. End of story.

Yeah, I pretty much expected for you dipshits to derail this thing to the United States in two posts.

When a couple of my cousins were down visiting from Germany a couple years ago, they had no desire to work, as they were lazy assholes. On the other hand when some more relatives were down this summer from Germany they both had good jobs in Germany, but they were born in Romania so, maybe that has something to do with it.

Are you?
I think a big problem with those numbers is that they're very misleading. A huge chunk of those people that have gone 'back to work' have had decent careers ripped out from under them to be replaced with minimum wage 'sure-28-hours-is-full-time' WalMart jobs that aren't keeping food in bellies by a long shot.

They have Wal-Mart in Germania?

yet how many jobs before the bush administration were condsidered the same?

Raise your hand if you're well versed on the German economy everyone.

Yo's, rights heres alreadys.

He's not. Neither is the German Chancellor. You could argue, however, that any administration has an some impact on jobs and unemployment rates. And because the head of state is where the buck supposedly stops in any administration, the head of state is responsible. Is that fair for one man or woman to have that hanging over their head? Absolutely not. Boo Hoo but that's too fucking bad for them. That's the mess you get yourself into when you are elected. Take the blame or take the praise, even if you had little to do with it.

God damn gypsies
Speaking of gypsies, are they still getting shit? Cuz I hear from my Slovakian friend that they tend to just live on the dole and whatnot.

Oh yeah, and Deutschland über alles. Like what.

Oh IEB, you just kill me.

3.2 million jobs lost in the first 2 1/2 years. 1 million lost to 9/11, the rest lost due to an economy which began tanking in March of 2000.

Say, what's happened since then? The only thing that matters is what happened in the first two and a half years? The last two years don't matter? They don't count for anything?

And of course, there are no good jobs available ever under a Republican President, just Wally World jobs.

For being so liberal, I didn't think you'd tought Stock Markets which fatten the pockets of rich Euro trash, over staggering unemployment rates across Europe due to failed economic policies.