5.2 million unemployed in Germany - March 2005

When is it going to better in this country? Sometimes I have to gloat about this figure after being told by several germans that the english are lazy and have a higher unemployment rate than this country.
It doesn't seem as though there is anybody in this country that has the ability or strength to sort this problem out. The only person who I thought had enough knowledge about economics and the strength of personality to get something done was Friedrich Merz but he has, as far as I know, now retreated from politics.

I think it's more on the upwards of 10M ... so "they" say, as some things should be kept a secret - in order to keep a positive national outlook and overall, appearance within the international community.

To the tune of "pokemon"

"Outsourcing - gonna get us all, gonna get us all, oh outsourcing"

Yep it looks bleak, but I think its gonna get bleaker, and with globalization and all this outsourcing stuff, it ain' t safe anywhere on the planet.

"Outsourcing - gonna get us all, gonna get us all, oh outsourcing"

James, tell those Germans to read this article posted by Louise the other week: Europe's stereotypes need rethinking - BBC News

I left the UK in November 2002, and I cannot remember it being that fantastic...

I could well believe the figure is much higher just by looking at my circle of friends and aquaintances. I think I know just as many people without work or who are on so called training courses as people who do have permanent work.

That figure could be actually be supersonically higher, we lost stacks of people last year, and a new company was formed just to train them , they got about 80-90% salary and employment in this new "training company" for a year. So when it shuts up shop soon, a load of new recruits will be heading down to the job centre. I think the young ones fared not too badly. But I don't know how rife these "training companies" are.

In NRW alone there are 1.1 million unemployed, a rise of 100,000 on January

and theres me considering a career change, doh! Maybe not.

Reading the text last night, part of the jump was put down to the cold weather which slowed down the booming building trade.

young people in particular are having a hard time getting ausbildungs now. Read an article the other week about how the largest EU expat group in in the UK is the French, young people graduate and can't get a job so they move to England.

Thats a problem for my children who are just coming up to school leaving age. There is nothing for them, which is starting to make me think about moving out of Germany.

Unemployoment down to about 4.4 million now. Nationwide down 10% on last year and down 15% in Bavaria. Maybe Schröder should have wauted one more year for the election to take advantage of the decreasing unemployment and world cup euphoria

if the 5 million all have to pay tax like me then someone is on to a winner

It will be going up again soon. There have been stories in the papers saying that some of the big car and electronic companies will be laying off many more people if things don't improve.

When we job-grabbing Auslaender get the hell out! Ha ha ha.

How about opening the shops on Sunday's and for longer hours during the week. This should reduce the number substantially.

It won't because due to the high "Lohnnebenkosten" they make the available staff work longer and don't recruit anyone new.

AKA "on-costs". Good point.