BERLIN, May 3 Reuters German unemployment fell in April, Labour Office figures showed on Tuesday, though the effect of the war in Ukraine slowed a continued recovery seen since the lifting of coronavirus pandemic measures.

The Federal Labour Office said the number of people out of work fell by 13,000 in seasonally adjusted terms to 2.287 million. Analysts polled by Reuters had on average expected a decrease of 15,000.

With the spring revival and easing of coronavirus measures, the recovery on the labour market continues. However, this development is being slowed by Russia39;s war against Ukraine, said Labour Office head Detlef Scheele.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate was stable at 5.0.

Provisional figures from the Federal Statistics Office earlier on Tuesday showed that the number of people living in Germany who had employment in March was at roughly 45.2 million, exceeding the precoronavirus pandemic level for the first time.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, 0.1, or 41,000 more people, were in employment than in February 2020, the month before the start of the pandemic in Germany.

Reporting by Reinhard Becker and Miranda Murray Editing by Madeline Chambers

Source Reuters