Frankfurt (AFP) – German unemployment registered a surprising rise in September, due to a scaling back of job creation schemes, official data showed on Tuesday.

The number of people registered as unemployed in Europe’s top economy rose by 25,000 in seasonally adjusted terms last month, the Federal Labor Office said in a statement, while analysts had been expecting a drop of around 5,000.

The unemployment rate — which measures the proportion of people out of work compared with working population as a whole — edged up to 6.9 percent in September from 6.8 percent in August in seasonally-adjusted terms, the Federal Labor Office said.

“This is due to less relief from labor market policy measures,” the office explained.

By contrast, in raw or unadjusted terms, the German jobless total fell by 96,760 people to 2.849 million and the unadjusted jobless rate declined to 6.6 percent from 6.8 percent, the office calculated.

“The labour market is in fundamentally good shape and is reacting little to the mixed economic data,” the office said.