German unemployment unexpectedly rose for the first time in five months in January as firms delayed hiring until the economic recovery gathers pace.
The jobless total rose by a seasonally adjusted 28,000 in January but fell by 81,000 under a new method introduced this year, the Federal Labour Office said.
The office has changed its definition of unemployment to exclude more than 80,000 people on some training programmes from the jobless rolls. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the adjusted jobless total to fall by 20,000 from December, but the statistical change confused matters.
The January unemployment data are the first to be published since last month's sacking of Federal Labour Office President Mr Florian Gerster after a row over the award of consultancy contracts. No decision has been taken on a successor yet.
The office said today that under the new method of calculation, the adjusted unemployment rate fell to 10.2 per cent, from 10.4 per cent in December.