FRANKFURT - The number of people registered as out of work in Germany, the eurozone's biggest economy, fell back below the psychologically important level of five million in April, falling to 4.98 million, the mass-circulation daily Bild said in a report released on Friday.
For the second month in a row, the German jobless total declined in April, with 193,000 people fewer claiming unemployment benefit than in March, when 5.176 million people were looking for work, the newspaper said in a pre-release of an article to appear in its Saturday edition.
Bild quoted sources close to the Federal Labour Agency, the body responsible for compiling the monthly unemployment statistics.
As a result of changes in benefit rules, the jobless total in Germany rose dramatically at the beginning of this year, breaching the five-million mark in the first three months to the highest levels since World War II.
But unemployment usually declines in the spring as better weather leads companies in sectors such as the construction industry to take on more workers.
The Federal Labour Agency is scheduled to publish official April jobless numbers next Thursday.
Nevertheless, in seasonally adjusted terms, the jobless queues lengthened by 20,000 to around 4.987 million people in April, analysts estimate.
04/22/2005 11:46 GMT