diff --git a/libsrc/core/logging.cpp b/libsrc/core/logging.cpp
index a39554f8..cedc99c4 100644
--- a/libsrc/core/logging.cpp
+++ b/libsrc/core/logging.cpp
@@ -15,12 +15,14 @@ namespace ngcore
 {
   std::ostream* testout = new std::ostream(nullptr); // NOLINT
 
+  level::level_enum Logger::global_level;
+
   void Logger::log(level::level_enum level, std::string && s)
   {
 #ifdef NETGEN_USE_SPDLOG
     logger->log(spdlog::level::level_enum(level), s);
 #else // NETGEN_USE_SPDLOG
-    if(level>level::debug)
+    if(level>=global_level)
       std::clog << s << '\n';
 #endif // NETGEN_USE_SPDLOG
   }
@@ -126,7 +128,11 @@ namespace ngcore
     return std::make_shared<Logger>(std::make_shared<spdlog::logger>());
   }
 
-  void SetLoggingLevel(level::level_enum /*unused*/, const std::string& /*unused*/) {}
+  void SetLoggingLevel(level::level_enum level, const std::string& /*unused*/)
+  {
+    Logger::SetGlobalLoggingLevel(level);
+  }
+
   void AddFileSink(const std::string& /*unused*/, level::level_enum /*unused*/,
       const std::string& /*unused*/)
   {}
diff --git a/libsrc/core/logging.hpp b/libsrc/core/logging.hpp
index cbbbea99..adfed7ed 100644
--- a/libsrc/core/logging.hpp
+++ b/libsrc/core/logging.hpp
@@ -49,7 +49,11 @@ namespace ngcore
 
   class Logger
   {
+    static NGCORE_API level::level_enum global_level;
+
   public:
+    static void SetGlobalLoggingLevel( level::level_enum level ) { global_level = level; }
+
     std::shared_ptr<spdlog::logger> logger;
 
     Logger(std::shared_ptr<spdlog::logger> l) : logger(std::move(l)) {}
diff --git a/libsrc/core/taskmanager.cpp b/libsrc/core/taskmanager.cpp
index 291ee42e..6b7b9f9a 100644
--- a/libsrc/core/taskmanager.cpp
+++ b/libsrc/core/taskmanager.cpp
@@ -74,8 +74,7 @@ namespace ngcore
 
     task_manager = new TaskManager();
 
-    // TODO: use logger for output
-    std::cout << "task-based parallelization (C++11 threads) using "<< task_manager->GetNumThreads() << " threads" << std::endl;
+    GetLogger("TaskManager")->info("task-based parallelization (C++11 threads) using {} threads", task_manager->GetNumThreads());
 
 #ifdef USE_NUMA
     numa_run_on_node (0);