Officially, with data that came out today....the German unemployment rate is 6.3-percent. Data coming from ARD (public TV, Channel One).
Total number of Germans out of work? 2.9-million....out of a population of 83-million.
Why no serious affect with Corona? Well, this comes down to 'short-work'....the term that is assigned to the program where the government is covering employees, even if the service or organization is not working or producing.
The example here....you run a company that makes bicycles. You have 100 employees. You decide that there is no real market for the quantity of bikes that you typically make, so you announce that a 50-percent cut in production will occur, so 50 of your employees aren't needed. You work out a schedule where everyone is working 8 to 16 hours a week, and the government is covering their salary structure. The max you make in short-hours? Typically 65 percent (it'll rise to 80 percent in the future).
Most all companies that were major producers....are on short-work.
So this prevents the companies from handing out the pink-slips and letting folks go.....for the time being.
A number of companies have said that by December....they will go to pink-slips because the short-work idea was not designed for a long-term situation.
At that point....probably November 2020 to January of 2021....the slips will go out, and unemployment probably will edge to 10-to-12 percent in a matter of three months.
Creating a problem for Chancellor Merkel? No. We are walking into the election period, and the entire election will be about the replacement Chancellor and a better economic situation coming by the end of 2021.
Will it max out at 10-to-12 percent? No one can predict that scenario.
This era hurting the Green Party message for the election? Oh......yes, in a very dynamic way.....the priority will be the economy and jobs....not climate change.
Update: How many jobs were saved via short-work? NTV says four million.
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