Official figures show that Germany's unemployment rate fell to 8.2% in May from 8.6% the previous month. But the improvement was mainly due to a change in the way unemployment is calculated.
The number of unemployed in Germany rose on a seasonally adjusted basis by a meagre 1,000 in May from April, the country's labour agency said.
In April, the number of jobless had jumped by 58,000 as Germany's worst recession since World War II slammed the labour market.
Figures in May were distorted downwards by around 20,000 owing to a new rule that instructed the labour agency not to count people undergoing training within a company as unemployed, it said.
