German job boom extends run

Unemployment in Germany ended 2018 steady at a historic low, official data showed Friday, with firms still keen to take on new workers even as growth slows. Some 5.0 percent of people were out of work last month in Europe's largest economy, the Federal Labour Agency (BA) said in figures adjusted for seasonal effects, the same level as in November and the lowest rate since the country's 1990 reunification.
In absolute terms, just over 2.2 million people were registered as unemployed in the country of about 83 million. Looking to the full-year average, the unemployment rate shed half a percentage point in 2018 compared with the previous year, to 5.2 percent.
BA chief Detlef Scheele pointed to the "positive economic development" over the past year as a driving force for job growth. "The decrease in long-term unemployment and the progress made in integrating refugees into the labour market are especially pleasing," he said.
In December, the head of the BDA employers' federation Ingo Kramer said around 400,000 of the more than one million migrants and refugees who have arrived since 2015 were in work or job training. But labour agency boss Scheele acknowledged that "the economic upswing has lost some of its momentum".
Germany's annual GDP growth figure for 2018 is expected to fall well short of the 2.2 percent rate recorded the previous year. Surveys of business and investor confidence have clouded over in recent months as Germany's exporting firms confront the fallout from trade wars between Washington, Brussels and Beijing.
Meanwhile political deadlock in Britain has made it more likely the island nation will leave the European Union without a deal in March - promising massive disruption in trade with one of Germany's biggest partners. Nevertheless, "firms' demand for new workers remains at a very high level," BA chief Scheele said, pointing to 781,000 open jobs registered with the agency.
Commenting on Twitter, ING Diba bank economist Carsten Brzeski said continued low unemployment could be either "a very lagging indicator or evidence that the slowdown of the economy might be much less severe than many think".