German jobless figures rise

Germany’s unemployment rate rose in November to the highest since December 1998 as business confidence fell to its lowest in more than a year and companies including BASF announced job cuts.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose to 10.8% from 10.7% in October as the number of jobseekers climbed by 7,000 to 4.46 million, the Federal Labour Agency said yesterday in Nuremberg.

The unemployment rate in Germany, whose economy makes up a third of the euro region, is now higher than when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was elected in September 1998.