The prospects for North Rhine-Westphalia’s labor market are clouding over. Actually, the situation relaxes significantly when summer turns to autumn, but this year it’s different. The comparison to the same month last year is also sobering.
Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – The looming recession and the consequences of the Ukraine war have caused unemployment in North Rhine-Westphalia to rise somewhat. The unemployment rate was 7.0 percent in October and thus 0.1 point higher than in the same month last year, the regional directorate of the Federal Employment Agency announced on Wednesday in Düsseldorf. 679,548 people were registered as unemployed, 7,644 more than in October 2021. Compared to September this year, the rate remained the same, the number of unemployed fell slightly – it usually falls much more sharply from September to October due to seasonal fluctuations.
“The labor market developed a little weaker in October than we could have expected based on the many years of experience in the second month of the autumn recovery,” said Torsten Withake, head of the NRW authority. It plays a role here that more Ukrainian refugees are now registered for German basic security, around 41,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition, it is noticeable that employers are more cautious than before in view of the global uncertainties, the ongoing supply bottlenecks and the uncertainty about the level of energy costs.
The situation varies in the different regions of the federal state. The unemployment rate in October was highest in the Ruhr area at 9.7 percent. The Bergisches Land and the Rhineland were around the national average with 6.8 percent each, with Ostwestfalen-Lippe (5.4) and South Westphalia (5.2) below. It looked best in Münsterland with an unemployment rate of only 4.1 percent.
