BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's unadjusted jobless rate declined to 8.4 percent in March as an economic upswing in Europe's biggest economy helped support the labor market, government figures showed Tuesday.
The Federal Labor Agency said the unadjusted jobless rate for March was down from 8.6 percent in February. A total of 3.507 million people were registered as jobless last month in Germany, down 110,000 from February and 617,000 from a year earlier.
The seasonally adjusted jobless rate fell to 7.8 percent from 8 percent in February, with the number of people out of work falling by 55,000 -- a deeper decline than the roughly 40,000 economists had expected.
''The labor market development continues to be supported by the strong economy,'' Labor Agency chief Frank-Juergen Weise said. ''Employment continues to grow and companies' demand for labor remains at a high level.''
Unadjusted employment figures typically improve in spring as milder weather improves the jobs situation in construction and other sectors. Two years of healthy economic growth have tamed unemployment that ran as high as 12.6 percent in 2005.
Economist Andreas Rees at UniCredit in Munich said the seasonally adjusted employment rate was now at its lowest since August 1992.
The economy is expected to cool this year. Still, ''the latest figures indicate that the German labor market is on a roll -- at least for the time being,'' Rees said in a research note.
In view of companies' high backlog of orders, ''we expect the demand for labor to be strong in the months ahead,'' he added.
''A deceleration will probably kick in only in autumn or even later this year,'' Rees said. However, he said consumer spending ''will remain wobbly.''
That was underlined by poor retail sales figures released Tuesday which highlighted a persistent weak point in Germany's economic recovery.
The Federal Statistical Office said that sales were down 0.3 percent on the year in February, and were 1.6 percent lower than the previous month.
Tuesday's figures showed that the unadjusted jobless rate in western Germany last month was 6.8 percent -- less than half the rate in the ex-communist and economically struggling east, where it was 14.4 percent.
