The Federal Labour Office said the number of people out ofwork increased by 5,000 in seasonally adjusted terms to 2.703 million. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the total to rise by 20,000.
"The labour market is still holding up well in terms of the extent of the burdens and uncertainties," said Andrea Nahles, chairwoman of the Federal Employment Agency.
Nahles noted that 2023 was one of the years with the lowest unemployment since the reunification of Germany.
The seasonally adjusted jobless rate slightly grew in December to 5.9%.
(Reporting by Bartosz Dabrowski, Maria Martinez and Holger Hansen, editing by Miranda Murray)
