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Youth unemployment set to sink to record low

Published: 24 Mar 12 11:20 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120324-41539.html

German youth unemployment figures are expected to fall to their lowest levels since the country's reunification in the coming months, according to a Saturday news report.

News magazine Focus said the latest statistics put Germany at the top of the heap among the 27 members of the European Union.

In February, less than 300,000 young people – or 6.3 percent – in Germany were jobless.

Holger Schäfer, labour market expert at the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, said the number of under-25-year-olds without work will "drop below five percent" this fall.

He added that some regions are already having trouble filling apprenticeship vacancies.

Citing EU statistics, Focus said German youth unemployment was 7.8 percent in January. The figure was more than four times higher in Spain, where nearly one in every two young people is out of work.

In France, more than 23 percent of eligible workers in the under-25 bracket are unemployed.

The head of Germany's Federal Employment Agency, Raimund Becker, praised preparatory programmes for helping get both high-performing and lower-ranking students ready for the job market.

The Local/arp

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

23:00 March 24, 2012 by Englishted
Great news but don't be to fooled if you are outside Germany ,because every job has to have a apprenticeship even to work in shops etc. and as in every country I know apprentices are payed less.

What is happening is now there is no guarantee of a job even if you pass with flying colours ,many now have to leave and are then re-employed by a agency so earn less than the people who they work with and have less holidays and far less security ,greed is always in the bigger picture now days which is sad.

Still as I said it is good news and better than a missing generation of young people as in Spain and Greece at the moment.
03:01 March 25, 2012 by hallopeople
We are very proud that our youth here in Germany can easily find a good job not that they are outside doing nothing, it's pity that the young ones in other parts of europe don't have this kinds of opportunity what we have here.
06:57 March 25, 2012 by Sastry.M
Any employmrnt that is productive and purposeful for sustenance of life can stand on solid ground and stay longer.Any other that promotes speculative business stands on shaky ground separating reality of life's purpose with vanity of greed and glory.
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