German unemployment rises in August

Unemployment in Germany rose in August as slowing growth due to the eurozone debt crisis begins to make itself felt on the labour market, official data showed on Thursday. In raw or unadjusted terms, headline unemployment rose, with the total number of people out of work up by 29,100 in August from July to stand at 2.91 million, the Federal Labour Agency said. The unadjusted jobless rate stood at 6.8 percent in August, unchanged from July. Unemployment tends to rise in the summer as school-leavers sign on the dole and companies close for the holidays but even adjusted for such seasonal factors, unemployment is on the rise in Europe's top economy, the data showed. The seasonally adjusted jobless total rose by 9,000 in August from July. But here, too, the adjusted jobless rate, which measures the proportion of people registered as unemployed against the working population as a whole, was unchanged at 6.8 percent. "The German economy did not grow much in the second quarter. The slower growth is making itself felt on the labour market," the labour agency said in a statement.