German Retail Sales Rise as Jobless Rate Near Record Low
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German retail sales rose in November as unemployment close to a two-decade low encouraged spending.
Sales, adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings, increased 1.2 percent from October, when they dropped 1.3 percent, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. Economists forecast a 0.8 percent gain, according to the median of 16 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Sales fell 0.9 percent from a year earlier. The statistics office said overall in 2012 sales fell between 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent against the previous year, after inflation was taken into account.