Job prospects in Germany have picked up over the past few weeks, newly-released figures from the country's Federal Labor Office suggest.

According to the latest official data, unemployment across Germany declined by 7,000 between October and November.

This brings the number of people without a job down to 3.422 million, representing a rate of 8.1 per cent, with this improvement partly attributed to a recent rise in short-term or part-time job opportunities in Germany.

In particular, the government's own Kurzarbeit scheme, which sees the state subsidize businesses so as to enable them to keep employees rather than letting them go, has been credited with helping around 1.056 million German workers, Reuters has reported.

However, only last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that unemployment is "bound to increase" in 2010 as the country continues to recover from the global economic downturn.

Earlier this month, the German government reported that its national economy has returned to a rate of growth after experiencing its worst recession of the post-war period.