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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (20230)	1/3/2005 11:24:53 AM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

German Economy Minister says he sees jobless total rising in January Monday, January 3, 2005 3:55:15 PM afxpress.com BERLIN (AFX) - The number of people officially registered as unemployed in Germany is set to rise this month as a result of labour market reforms that came into effect on Jan 1, German Economy and Labour Minister Wolfgang Clement said Nevertheless, the increase would be largely due to a statistical effect and unemployment in the eurozone's biggest economy would gradually come down during the course of this year, Clement said at an event at the Federal Labour Agency in Nuremberg Due to the controversial Hartz Four reforms -- which replace the current two-tier system of unemployment benefits and welfare support for the long-term unemployed with a single flat-rate payout -- a larger number of people would be classified as officially looking for work, Clement explained without specifying how large the figure may be "But it is important to stress that there won't actually be more people without a job than before. This is purely a statistical effect," Clement insisted. "During the course of the year, I expect the jobless total to begin to fall gradually," he added Recent press reports said Germany's jobless figure in December is expected to be 4.43 mln, up 173,000 from November and up by 113,000 from December last year, citing provisional figures from the Federal Labour Office The Federal Labour Office is due to publish tomorrow the official unemployment figures for December Looking at 2004 as a whole, the number of people claiming dole in the eurozone's biggest economy averaged 4.38 million, unchanged from 2003, the reports said Experts estimate that the German jobless total may rise to five million in February or March as a result of labour market reforms