BERLIN, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The labor market barometer of the German Institute for Employment Research (IAB) rose by 3.1 points, compared to the previous month, to 97.8 points in July, the IAB announced on Tuesday.
After a slight rise of 0.8 points in June, the IAB indicator made "a great leap upwards" in July, the research institute of Germany's Federal Employment Agency (BA) noted. In April, the labor market barometer had plummeted to 93.5 points, the lowest value in its history.
"The negative trend in the labor market seems to have largely stopped," said Enzo Weber, head of the IAB research department.
Index values for both unemployment and employment also increased, according to IAB. Both values still remained below the neutral 100-point benchmark.
The labor market in Germany had so far "coped relatively well" with the economic impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, stressed Weber.
In June, the German government agreed on an economic stimulus package to mitigate the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, including a temporary reduction of value-added tax (VAT), quick loans for struggling companies as well as additional measures to avoid lay-offs.
Last week, head of BA Detlef Scheele told the German Press Agency (dpa) that the German labor market could require up to three years to recover from the coronavirus crisis.
In June, 2.85 million people in Germany were registered as unemployed, around 640,000 more than the same month last year. On Thursday the BA is scheduled to present figures for the German labor market in July.
Despite the COVID-19 impacts, Scheele believed that the unemployment figure in Germany would not exceed the three million mark in the next two months. Enditem
