Figures this morning show that the German unemployment rate fell 0.3 points to 10.5% in June in a stronger than expected improvement.
The Federal Labour Agency said the country had just under 4.4 million people out of work this month, 138,000 fewer than in May.
The number of unemployed dropped about 383,000 compared with the same period a year ago when the jobless rate, which measures the total number of people out of work against the workforce as a whole, was more than 11%.
In February, the number of unemployed had surpassed the politically sensitive bar of five million and receded only slowly during the spring months.
'The development in the labour market in June is encouraging,' Labour Office chief Frank-Juergen Weise said.
Unemployment usually improves in the warmer months as seasonal jobs roll into gear. But even taking such factors into account, there was improvement in the German labour market this month.
Seasonally adjusted data showed a decline in the jobless rate in June to 10.9% from 11% in May, beating expectations. The Bundesbank said separately that the seasonally adjusted jobless figure reached 4.54 million, down from 4.59 million in May.
Some analysts said the World Cup hosted by Germany had boosted jobs, producing a one-off effect that may be difficult to reproduce afterwards.
