Berlin - German unemployment fell in September to 3.177 million despite the bleak outlook on the world's financial markets, the nation's labour office said Tuesday.

That marked a drop by 29,000 in the seasonally adjusted tally from the previous month.

Labour office chief Frank-Juergen Weise said the labour market had yet to be feel the effects of the downturn and the market turmoil.

The politically more important unadjusted tally was 3.081 million, down 115,000 from August as hirings increased after Germany's summer vacations.

That brought the unadjusted joblessness rate down 0.2 of a percentage point to 7.4 per cent.

A year ago the comparable unadjusted rate had been 8.5 per cent. The September seasonally-unadjusted tally was 463,000 less than in the same month last year. (dpa)