January sees fall in unemployment rate

The jobless rate slid to 6.2 percent, the lowest level since German reunification, from 6.3 percent the previous month, data from the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg showed on Tuesday.

Employers in the Pittsburgh region cut about 2,600 jobs from their payrolls in December, according to the monthly job count that is not adjusted for the usual gains and losses considered normal for the time of year.

Unemployment rates for adjacent counties were 5.6 percent in Jefferson; 6 percent in Clearfield; 5.8 percent in Cambria; 4.8 percent in Westmoreland; and 6.1 percent in Armstrong. A similar pace was expected in 2016.

Agency chief Frank-Juergen Weise pointed to a drop in seasonally-adjusted unemployment.

But that increase was exclusively due to seasonal factors, it explained.

Year on year, the figure was down 30,500 last month, leading to a fall in the rate of 1.5 percentage points. “The labour market is developing positively”, it added.

While companies still face downside risks, most notably a slowing Chinese economy that is jolting global financial markets and weighing on global trade, high employment and weak oil prices have boosted consumer spending.

That mirrors the statewide rate of 4.8 percent, which also fell two-tenths of a percent in December. And in France, the area’s second-biggest economy, unemployment stood at 10.2 percent.

Commenting on the figures, Davy economist David McNamara said the recovery in the construction sector in particular should continue to yield sharp falls in the male unemployment rate, with former construction workers still the largest cohort on the Live Register.

Klein suggested that the influx of refugees would take until the middle of the year before starting to be reflected in the German unemployment numbers in view of “the administrative lags involved as authorities are now being overwhelmed by the numbers”.

The rate was 9.8% for men, and 7.2% for women.