In Germany: Factory Orders And Unemployment Up

The volume of German manufacturing orders rose 4.7% in February compared with January, mainly on the back of some big-ticket orders, according to provisional data released Apr. 6 by the Finance Ministry. Domestic orders, which fell 1.3% in January, surged 5.3% in February, while foreign orders jumped 3.6% after a 0.1% decline in January, the ministry said. The January data were revised down. In another economic indicator released this week in Germany, the number of unemployed people in March rose a seasonally adjusted 8,000 from the previous month, compared with a revised monthly fall of 32,000 in February, the Federal Labor Office said. The data is significantly worse than a Bridge Fokus Deutschland survey of economists, which had forecast a fall of 29,000 in pan-German seasonally adjusted unemployment.