German unemployment fell 86,000 in seasonally adjusted terms on the month in November, the Federal Labour Office said today.
The unadjusted total fell to 3.995 million, taking the jobless figure below four million for the first time in four years.
A poll of 2,025 firms by the Institute for the German Economy, a business-funded think tank, released this week showed 28.8 per cent of companies surveyed said they would expand their payrolls in 2007, compared with 18.2 per cent planning cuts.
German retail sales unexpectedly declined in October, undershooting all forecasts, as hopes that a three percentage point rise in sales tax on January 1st would spur overall spending this autumn were disappointed.
Sales fell by 0.2 per cent in October in real and seasonally adjusted terms compared with the previous month, preliminary Federal Statistics Office data showed today.
Compared with the same month a year earlier, sales were down 0.8 per cent in real terms in October, the office said.