BERLIN, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- "Never before in reunited Germany" had so few young people been without work as in 2018, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on the occasion of International Youth Day on Monday.
Last year, the unemployment rate for German youths in the age group 15-24 was 6.2 percent, the Federal Statistical Office announced.
In the new German federal states Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, the youth unemployment rate was 8.6 percent while 5.8 percent of youths in the old federal states were unemployed in 2018, Destatis noted.
Since 2005, youth unemployment rates had more than halved for the former federal territory and the new German federal states including Berlin, according to Destatis.
The highest levels of youth unemployment were recorded in 2005, after several years of stagnation in the economy. At that time, unemployment in Germany was 15.2 percent among 15 to 24-year-olds, the statistical office stated.
Young people had "benefited from the overall favorable development of the labor market during this period," Destatis noted.
At the same time, however, the unemployment rate for Germans aged between 15 and 64 had fallen even more sharply by almost two-thirds from 11.3 percent to 3.5 percent since 2005.
There had been an overall decline in the number of young people in Germany since reunification, the Federal Statistical Office reported.
Back in 1991, around 10.3 million people or 13 percent of the German population belonged to the age group 15 to 24.
The number of Germans aged 15 to 24 was only 8.6 million or 10 percent of the total population last year, according to the statistical office.
