BERLIN, May 7 - German unemployment adjusted for seasonal factors rose in April by 44,000 to 4.460 million, a postwar record for the month, according to a source familiar with official data due to be released later on Wednesday. It was the 13th consecutive rise in adjusted unemployment in Europe's largest economy which has stagnated since a mild recession at the end of 2001. The seasonally adjusted jobless rise was slightly above the consensus in a poll of 22 analysts for a rise of 41,700. Forecasts ranged from a rise of 30,000 to 60,000. The seasonally adjusted jobless total in west Germany rose by 30,000, while unemployment increased by 14,000 in the former communist east, the source said. The unadjusted jobless total fell as expected to 4.495 million from 4.608 million, bringing the unadjusted jobless rate down to 10.8 percent from 11.1 percent in March, the source said.
Headline unemployment traditionally eases in the spring and summer as farms, leisure and tourism companies take on seasonal hires.
NO IMPROVEMENT SEEN
Analysts do not expect any near term improvement in the underlying trend as hopes for a second half upturn have receded. The government last week cut its growth forecast for 2003 to 0.75 percent from 1.0 percent. "It is in line with expectations. We had been expecting a rise of about 40,000," said Ralph Solveen at Commerzbank. "It shows that the labour market is still strained and given the leading indicators we will probably continue to see a rise in seasonally adjusted unemployment deep into the autumn and even to the end of the year," said Solveen. "Unadjusted unemployment could rise over five million in the winter. The strong euro is certainly a dampening factor and although it is helping private consumption it has more of a dampening effect on the economy," he said. Europe's second largest travel firm Thomas Cook, jointly owned by Lufthansa and retailer Karstadt Quelle , said last month it was doubling planned job cuts for 2003 to 1,200.
A spokeswoman for the tourism giant said the end of the Iraq war had brought only a slight improvement in forward bookings. Europe's second-biggest chipmaker Infineon Technologies Infineon Technologies said in April it would cut up to another 900 jobs in the next few months. The Munich-based group said the latest job cuts would come from corporate functions, but 150 jobs would be lost at its secure mobile solutions unit, mainly in Sweden. Infineon, which employed just over half its global workforce of about 30,000 in Germany last year, cut around 10 percent of its staff numbers in 2002 as it stepped up cost savings.//