German unemployment falls to fresh record low

German unemployment fell again in November to a new record low level, official data showed on Wednesday, as the labour market in Europe's top economy seemed to shrug off the effects of the eurozone crisis. The German jobless rate, which measures the proportion of people registered as unemployed against the working population as a whole, fell to 6.4 percent in November from 6.5 percent in October, according to raw or unadjusted figures published by the Federal Labour Agency (BA). This was the lowest level since reunification in 1990. When adjusted for seasonal factors, the rate was 6.9 percent. This marked a decrease of 20,000 in the jobless numbers, a better result than economists had forecast. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a drop of 5,000 in the adjusted number of jobless claims. "The German labour market is benefiting from the good economic trend until now. In November, there was no clouding over," said Heinrich Alt from the BA. "Unemployment is going down, employment is still rising and the demand for labour has also increased," added Alt.