German unemployment rises in June as Ukrainian refugees look for work

BERLIN (Reuters) -German unemployment rose in June, Labour Office figures showed on Thursday, as Ukrainian refugees are registering with the office in search of work.

The Federal Labour Office said the number of people out of work grew by 133,000 in seasonally adjusted terms to 2.417 million. Analysts polled by Reuters had on average expected a decrease of 6,000.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose to 5.3%.

“The labour market overall remains stable,” said the head of the labour office, Detlef Scheele. While unemployment did grow strongly in June, he said, “this increase is due to the fact that Ukrainian refugees are now being recorded at job centres and are thus visible in the labour market statistics.”

Nearly 800,000 Ukrainian refugees have been recorded in Germany so far, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said late last month. The actual number of Ukrainian refugees in Germany is believed to be much higher.

(Reporting by Miranda MurrayEditing by Paul Carrel)