Press release No.188 / 2008-05-21

Number of persons in employment increasing by 1.4 million on two years earlier

WIESBADEN – According to provisional results of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the number of persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germanyamounted to about 39.8 million in the first quarter of 2008. Compared to the first quarter of 2006, the number of persons in employment in Germanyhence rose by 1.4 million or 3.7% as a result of the continued job growth linked to economic development. In the service sector alone, a total of 1.1. million (+3.8%) additional jobs were created in the past two years. In that period, strong employment gains were also recorded in industry (including energy) and construction (+218,000 persons/+2.8% and +104,000 persons/+5.1%, respectively), which had been characterised by continuous job losses in the years before.

Compared to a year earlier, the number of persons in employment increased by 686,000 or 1.8% in the first quarter of 2008. Hence the increase in employment continued with nearly unabated momentum on a year earlier (fourth quarter of 2007 on the previous year: +703,000 persons or +1.8%).

Different trends were however observed in the individual industries: In industry (including energy), increasing year-on-year growth rates were recorded for the individual quarters since the first quarter of 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, the relevant figure amounted to +151,000 persons (+1.9%), after +136,000 persons (+1.7%) in the fourth quarter of 2007. In the service sector as a whole, the number of persons in employment increased by 532,000 or 1.9% in the reference quarter. This growth rate was very similar to the rate observed a year earlier (first quarter of 2007: +534,000 persons or +1.9%). Like in the fourth quarter of 2007, however, the number of jobs declined slightly in construction (–2,000 persons or –0.1%). In agriculture and forestry, the increase in the number of persons in employment was as strong as in the fourth quarter of 2007 (+5,000 persons or +0.6%).

Due to seasonal effects, the number of persons in employment declined by 558,000 (–1.4%) on the previous quarter. However, the decline was less marked than the average of the three years before (average quarter-on-quarter decline recorded for the first quarters of 2005 to 2007: –766,000 persons or –1.9%).

Upon seasonal adjustment, that is the elimination of seasonal fluctuations, the number of persons in employment in the first quarter of 2008 showed an increase of 220,000 (+0.5%) compared with the previous quarter. Besides the continued favourable economic trend, the exceptionally good weather during the winter months and the increased utilisation of seasonal short-time working allowance, introduced in late 2006, presumably had an additional positive impact on the employment trend.

Above all, employees profited from the positive development of the labour market in the first quarter of 2008. Compared to a year earlier, their number increased by 657,000 or 1.9% to about 35.4 million. The number of self-employed including family workers was up 0.7% to about 4.4 million in the reference quarter.

According to first provisional results of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), the average number of hours worked per person in employment in the first quarter of 2008 was down 0.8% to 366.2 hours on a year earlier. One of the reasons was that in the first quarter of 2008 two working days less were available than in the same quarter of the previous year. At the same time, the total number of hours worked, that is the number of persons in employment multiplied by hours worked per person in employment, was up 1.0% to 14.6 billion hours.

In addition to the first calculation of the number of persons in employment and of the number of hours worked for the first quarter of 2008, the results published so far have been revised, starting with the third quarter of 2007, as part of the regular revision of national accounts. The recalculation of the quarterly data resulted in an employment figure revision of a maximum 0.2% compared with the previous state of computation.

The current national accounts data on employment by quarters and years are available on the website of the Federal Statistical Office.

>>> brief methodological description

For further information please call:
Michael Braig,
tel: (+49-611) 75-2932,

E-mail: arbeitsmarkt@destatis.de

Persons in employment whose place of employment is in Germany and hours worked ¹⁾
Year, quarter		Persons in employment, total	Agricul- ture, forestry and fishing	Industry, including energy	Construc- tion	Service activities ²⁾	Hours worked ³⁾
Year, quarter		Persons in employment, total	Agricul- ture, forestry and fishing	Industry, including energy	Construc- tion	Service activities ²⁾	per person in employment	by persons in employment
¹⁾ For persons in employment: Annual and quarterly averages. ²⁾ Trade, hotel and restaurant services, transport, financial, renting and business activities, other service activities. ³⁾ Source: Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (Institute for Employment Research) of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Employment Agency), Nuremberg.
Persons in 1,000							Hours	mn hours
2005		38,846	850	7,884	2,165	27,947	1,434.9	55,740
2006		39,088	841	7,809	2,159	28,279	1,432.7	56,001
2007		39,765	850	7,909	2,199	28,807	1,433.1	56,987
2006	1st qtr	38,418	777	7,760	2,027	27,854	367.9	14,134
	2nd qtr	38,961	863	7,774	2,143	28,181	339.9	13,243
	3rd qtr	39,297	880	7,821	2,222	28,374	362.9	14,261
	4th qtr	39,678	846	7,882	2,243	28,707	361.9	14,359
2007	1st qtr	39,137	789	7,827	2,133	28,388	369.0	14,442
	2nd qtr	39,617	873	7,858	2,191	28,695	340.6	13,494
	3rd qtr	39,919	887	7,932	2,231	28,869	362.9	14,487
	4th qtr	40,381	851	8,018	2,240	29,272	360.7	14,565
2008	1st qtr	39,823	794	7,978	2,131	28,920	366.2	14,583
Change in % on the corresponding period of the previous year
2005		–0.1	–2.6	–1.7	–3.9	0.8	–0.5	–0.6
2006		0.6	–1.1	–1.0	–0.3	1.2	–0.2	0.5
2007		1.7	1.1	1.3	1.9	1.9	0.0	1.8
2006	1st qtr	0.0	–1.9	–1.7	–2.4	0.8	1.0	1.0
	2nd qtr	0.6	–0.6	–1.2	–0.5	1.3	–1.2	–0.5
	3rd qtr	0.9	–0.8	–0.6	0.4	1.4	–0.4	0.5
	4th qtr	1.0	–1.1	–0.3	1.3	1.3	–0.1	0.8
2007	1st qtr	1.9	1.5	0.9	5.2	1.9	0.3	2.2
	2nd qtr	1.7	1.2	1.1	2.2	1.8	0.2	1.9
	3rd qtr	1.6	0.8	1.4	0.4	1.7	0.0	1.6
	4th qtr	1.8	0.6	1.7	–0.1	2.0	–0.3	1.4
2008	1st qtr	1.8	0.6	1.9	–0.1	1.9	–0.8	1.0

For more details please refer to the German version.

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