German unemployment fell to 8.0 percent of the workforce in September, official data showed on Wednesday, confounding forecasts of a slight increase in the biggest European economy.

Government subsidies which allow firms to cut working hours has thus far prevented a flood of jobless claims but experts warn that claims could rise significantly in coming months.

Germany has nonetheless rebounded more quickly than expected from its worst recession since World War II, edging back to growth in the second quarter of this year with expansion of 0.3 percent.

That could help companies avoid outright redundancies, although a report in the daily Die Welt said Wednesday that Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, wants to eliminate or farm out 1,300 German jobs.

In August the unemployment rate stood at 8.3 percent.

The Federal Labour Agency said on Wednesday that the total number of unemployed fell by 125,000 people from August to a total of 3.346 million.

That was however an increase of 266,000 from September 2008, it noted in a statement.

Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires meanwhile had forecast a new jobless rate of 8.4 percent.

But September often sees a drop in the number of unemployed German workers, and agency president Frank Weise was quoted as saying that the latest results "were not a change in the trend" higher in recent months.

The new coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel will include the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) which call for rules controlling job cutting to be eased to increase flexibility in the labour market and encourage employers to take on staff.

Goldman Sachs economist Dirk Schumacher estimated that an interesting test of upcoming talks between the coalition partners on future policy "will be dismissal protection."

He said: "The FDP election platform demands meaningful changes to the current regime while chancellor Merkel apparently made a promise to unions not to touch the current framework."