German unemployment fell by a moderate, seasonally-adjusted 25,000 last month, offering evidence of a recovery in employment in the west and triggering hopes that eastern Germany's jobs crisis has stabilised.

The Bonn government hailed last month's sharp nationwide drop of 202,700 in the unadjusted jobless total to 4.42 million as signalling an "unmistakable change of trend" in western Germany.

But it stressed unemployment, at a national average of 11.4 per cent in April on both the seasonally adjusted and unadjusted "headline" measures, was still too high and remained "the number one political challenge".

Germany's employers welcomed the news: Mr Dieter Hundt, president of the employers federation, forecast unemployment would fall further by more than 100,000 this month. But Ms Ursula Engelen-Kefer, deputy leader of the trade union federation, saw no general improvement.

Seasonally adjusted figures from the Bundesbank showed a 14,000 drop to 2.94 million jobless in the west, trimming the unemployment rate to 9.5 per cent in April from 9.6 per cent in March. In the former Communist east, the jobless total fell in the month by an adjusted 10,000 to 1.45 million, cutting the regional rate to 19.1 per cent from 19.3 per cent.

The number of new jobs on offer last month, at 341,800, was 26 per cent higher than in April last year. Meanwhile, the uncertainties surrounding Germany's manufacturing-led economic recovery were highlighted yesterday by provisional Bundesbank figures showing a 1.3 per cent drop in the volume of industry's incoming orders in March. Domestic orders fell 2 per cent while export orders were a fraction below February's level. However, the Bonn economics ministry said it expected the figures would be revised upwards later.