Press release No.036 / 2010-01-28

Decrease in employment slowing down in December

WIESBADEN – According to provisional results of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the number of persons in employment whose place of residence is in Germany amounted to 40.3 million in December 2009. That is a decline by 211,000 persons or 0.5% against December 2008. Hence the year-on-year decrease in the number of persons in employment slowed down. The year-on-year decline observed in October 2009 (–281,000 persons or –0.7%) has so far been the largest in the context of the current economic weakness. However, it would be premature to consider the development in December 2009 as a trend reversal on the German labour market.

Compared with November 2009, the number of persons in employment was down by 172,000 (–0.4%) in December 2009. However, after seasonal adjustment, that is after elimination of the typical seasonal variations, an increase by 35,000 persons against the preceding month is recorded.

Beyond the calculation of the number of persons in employment for the reference month of December 2009, the results published so far have been revised from May 2009 based on new information in terms of employment statistics becoming available. The recalculations produced rates of change against a year earlier which, for some months, deviate upwards from the former calculations by a maximum of 0.2 percentage points at the overall economic level. For the annual average result for 2009 published on 4 January 2010, revising the monthly values has resulted in a level correction by +23,000 (+0.06%).

Annual results and more monthly results, including the number of unemployed according to an internationally comparable concept, can be accessed on the Internet. Here, you will also find detailed methodological notes on the ILO labour market statistics, the labour force survey and the microcensus.

Persons in employment whose place of residence is in Germany ¹⁾
Year	Month	Original values			Seasonally adjusted ²⁾
Year	Month	persons	change on previous month	change on the same month of the previous year	persons	change on previous month
¹⁾ Results of employment accounts as part of national accounting: persons in employment whose place of residence is in Germany (resident concept). The respective time series for persons in employment whose place of work is in Germany (domestic concept) are presented on the Internet. ²⁾ Seasonal adjustment by Census-X12-Arima.
		in million	in %		in million	in %
2008	January	39.676	–1.2	1.7	40.042	0.3
	February	39.736	0.2	1.7	40.092	0.1
	March	39.886	0.4	1.7	40.154	0.2
	April	40.033	0.4	1.5	40.169	0.0
	May	40.136	0.3	1.5	40.183	0.0
	June	40.179	0.1	1.5	40.210	0.1
	July	40.150	–0.1	1.5	40.247	0.1
	August	40.227	0.2	1.4	40.273	0.1
	September	40.557	0.8	1.4	40.307	0.1
	October	40.772	0.5	1.3	40.333	0.1
	November	40.742	–0.1	1.1	40.319	0.0
	December	40.509	–0.6	0.9	40.292	–0.1
2009	January	39.909	–1.5	0.6	40.268	–0.1
	February	39.938	0.1	0.5	40.284	0.0
	March	40.016	0.2	0.3	40.272	0.0
	April	40.138	0.3	0.3	40.265	0.0
	May	40.172	0.1	0.1	40.222	–0.1
	June	40.151	–0.1	–0.1	40.190	–0.1
	July	40.074	–0.2	–0.2	40.173	0.0
	August	40.074	0.0	–0.4	40.125	–0.1
	September	40.321	0.6	–0.6	40.074	–0.1
	October	40.491	0.4	–0.7	40.053	–0.1
	November	40.470	–0.1	–0.7	40.054	0.0
	December	40.298	–0.4	–0.5	40.089	0.1

>>> Brief methodological description

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

E-mail: arbeitsmarkt@destatis.de

For more details please refer to the German version.

Contact:
tel: (+49-611)75-3444
fax: (+49-611)75-3976
presse@destatis.de
www.destatis.de

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Germany

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