What's going on?

Germans kicked off the new year with more than just a pounding headache: newly released data showed the country�s employment reached a record high in 2019.

What does this mean?

Fresh data out on Thursday showed Germany added 402,000 jobs in 2019, up 0.9% on the year before. The German government also announced the quality of jobs was improving, with higher pay and benefits becoming de rigueur (or, y�know, the German equivalent). That�s pretty impressive, especially considering a slowdown that saw the economy as a whole grow just 0.5% last year.

But not everyone won out. Only 15% of those jobs were in manufacturing, which perhaps shouldn�t be a surprise given the state of the sector in Germany: it shrank once again in December, marking a full year of contraction.

Why should I care?

For markets: Don�t get carried away.
More workers with higher wages might be good news for consumer goods companies in Germany, since mo� money could lead to mo� spending. But the good times aren�t expected to last. Auto companies � the backbone of the German economy � are set to struggle this year, as foreign demand for the country�s cars falls. The German government, then, reckons the country will add just 100,000 jobs in the whole of 2020.

Zooming out: Countdown to Brexit.
Another albatross around the European economy�s neck is Brexit-related uncertainty. According to a new survey by the Bank of England, as many as 42% of UK businesses expect things to remain unresolved until 2021. But the survey also showed they�re less worried about the potential impact than they once were. 17% of participants even thought Brexit could lead to a sales boost � perhaps thanks to the record number of tourists taking advantage of the weaker pound.