January 6, 2004
German job numbers drop
6 January 2004 , WIESBADEN – Employment in Germany in 2003 averaged 38.3 million, down by 392,000 or one percent from the year before, despite a rise in self-employment, the Federal Statistics Office reported Tuesday. The office said the drop was the worst in 10 years, when in 1993 the German economy had shed 513,000 jobs. Employees were the worst hit in 2003, with their job-holding numbers falling 1.3 percent to 34.1 million. But self-employment, under the Berlin government’s new “Ich AG” (Me, Inc.) schem