"Krone" commentary

When Martin Kocher is happy about a black eye

Rainer Nowak analyzes the labour market figures.(Bild: Krone KREATIV, stock.adobe.com, Reinhard Holl)

Getting off lightly: This is how the latest unemployment figures for the past year, presented by AMS boss Johannes Kopf, can be read.

Almost 400,000 were without a job. That's a lot, corresponding to a year-on-year increase of 5.6 percent for women and seven percent for men. The figures for young people are also negative, with an increase of 9.6 percent at the end of the year and 61,541 without a job. Very positive, however: