What does the ILO labour market statistics describe?

The ILO labour market statistics of the Federal Statistical Office provides monthly information on the development of employment and unemployment in Germany. The data published include the absolute figures of employed persons and the employment/population ratio as well as the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate.


The Office’s ILO labour market statistics follows the Labour Force Concept of the International Labour Organization (ILO). That internationally established concept allows comparisons between the German labour market data with those of other countries. Also, the fact that the definitions are independent from national social security provisions largely ensures that time series can be interpreted without any restrictions due to breaks caused by changes in legislation.







In accordance with the ILO concept, any person from the age of 15 is considered employed if he/she worked for remuneration or as self-employed or as a family worker for at least one hour in the one-week reference period. Also, persons formally having a job and only temporarily not having performed that job within the reference period are considered employed.
The employment/population ratio published by the Federal Statistical Office refers the number of employed persons between 15 and 64 years to the relevant age group in the total population.


According to the definition of the ILO as concretised by the EU, any person aged between 15 and 74 years is considered unemployed if he/she was not employed in that period, but actively sought work over the four weeks preceding the survey. The volume of time of the work sought is not relevant. The person must be able to take up employment within two weeks. It is not necessary to involve an employment agency or a local institution in the search. The unemployment rate is calculated as the share of unemployed persons in the total labour force

The labour force comprises anyone who is either employed or unemployed. Consequently, anyone neither employed nor offering his/her labour on the labour market is considered as part of the inactive population.


The unemployment definition based on the ILO concept thus differs from the definition of the number of registered unemployed according to the German Social Security Code (SGB), which is the basis of the figures published by the Federal Employment Agency. For a person to be recorded as unemployed, the SGB requires that the person is registered with an employment agency or a local institution and seeks an employment of at least 15 hours per week. In line with the SGB, it is however possible to perform a job of less than 15 hours for additional earnings despite being registered as unemployed.


Due to the conceptual differences, the ILO labour market statistics includes unemployed persons who are not counted as registered unemployed by the Federal Employment Agency. On the other hand, there are persons who are considered as registered unemployed in the statistics of the Federal Employment Agency but who are not unemployed according to the definitions of the ILO labour market statistics.


From the reference month of September 2007, the labour force survey (part of the microcensus) has been used as a data basis to determine the number of unemployed. Back calculations are performed to produce comparable seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment figures from 1992. Monthly unadjusted unemployment figures are available from January 2007. Detailed information on the changeover to the labour force survey is provided here.
The employment data are results obtained in the context of national accounting. They are based on all major sources of employment statistics, in particular, the statistics of employees subject to social insurance contributions, the labour force survey, personnel statistics, and short, medium and long-term statistics of different sectors of economic activity.

The monthly employment and unemployment figures calculated in accordance with the ILO concept are generally published in a press release on the last working day of the month following the reference month. The exact publication dates are given in the release calendar of the Federal Statistical Office.
More information
Information on the employment indicator in the context of national accounting
Detailed information on the ILO labour market statistics from September 2007