According to the German Federal Employment Agency (BA), a rise in unemployment to three million in January is possible. A BA spokesperson told a German newspaper that, when reporting on the labor market in early January, they had expected a slight increase in unemployment due to the given circumstances. They considered it possible that, in January, Germany would again have over three million people out of work, a level not seen in ten years. The last time the unemployment rate exceeded this mark was in February 2015, according to the BA.
However, the BA spokesperson emphasized that the three-million mark is merely a psychological benchmark and that the unemployment rate is likely to fall again by the end of the year. The exact labor market data for January will be released by the BA on Friday, with the December figure standing at 2.81 million people out of work.
An expert from the Ifo Institute, Clemens Fuest, also predicts a rise in unemployment to three million, expecting the number of jobless to slowly increase until the summer, before declining again. Fuest attributes the increase in unemployment to the industrial sector’s job cuts, which will not be fully offset by the growth of the service sector, such as the healthcare industry.