[snowsislander]

I think that the change in definition for "unemployment rate"is responsible for a good bit of this perception of great problems, although I have read about a lot of problems in German SMEs (mittelstandische? something like that in German) over the last few years.

I looked at some less-than-current German participation rates; while they weren't from an official source and should be discounted to a degree, assuming some accuracy to the figures they weren't all that bad.

I haven't yet found a good government source for German labor information; if anyone has one, could you please post it or freepmail it?

[RWR8189]

You might find what you're looking for at the Eurostat website.