German employment growth in September rose 0.8 percent year-on-year but showed a slowing momentum as eurozone debt crisis takes its toll on German economy, according to official data released on Tuesday.

Wiesbaden-based Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said in a report that a total of 41.8 million persons were employed in Germany in September, 324,000 above the level of the same month last year.

However, the 0.8-percent increase on an annual basis is slower than the 0.9-percent growth seen in both July and August. The office warned that employment growth on the preceding year continued with ebbing momentum: the relative increase on the same month of the previous year had amounted to 1.4 percent in January and fallen by 0.6 percentage points by September.

On a monthly basis, employment rose by 208,000 or 0.5 percent in September compared with August, but there was a slight decrease of 15,000 people compared the growth in the last month after seasonal adjustment. In the past five years, the number of persons in employment had risen by an average 280,000 from August to September.

Meanwhile, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said Tuesday that German joblessness rose for the seventh month in October, reaching 2.937 million from 2.917 million in September. The unemployment rate stood at 6.9 percent, unchanged from a revised figure for September.

The losing momentum of the improvement in the labor market is a sign that the German labor market is affected by the unfolding eurozone debt crisis which caused the loss of exports to other eurozone countries. The Merkel government hopes robust domestic demand could shore up economic growth.

The German government has slashed its forecast for economic growth in 2013 from 1.6 percent to 1 percent, after a predicted 0.8-percent growth in 2012. The forecasts indicate a major slowdown, as German GDP grew 4.2 percent in 2010 and 3 percent in 2011.