Press release No.206 / 2011-05-31

The labour market in April 2011

WIESBADEN – Employment and unemployment in Germany continued their favourable trends in April 2011. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the number of persons in employment living in Germany amounted to 40.68 million, which was over half a million more than a year earlier. 2.54 million people were unemployed. This means that the unemployment rate was down to 6.0% in April 2011.

According to provisional results of employment accounts, the number of persons in employment in April 2011 rose by 521,000 or 1.3% compared with April 2010. Compared with March 2011, the number of persons in employment was up by 201,000 or 0.5% as a result of the usual spring upturn. The increase remaining after adjustment for seasonal effects amounts to 39,000 people (+0.1%) and reflects the short-term economic development.

According to results of the EU labour force survey, 2.54 million people were unemployed in April 2011, which was a decrease of 490,000 or 16.1% on April of the previous year. Compared with March 2011, unemployment was markedly down by 190,000 or 6.7%. When adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects (trend estimation), the number of unemployed in April 2011 (2.57 million) was by 40,000 smaller than in the previous month. The adjusted unemployment rate went down to 6.1%.

The decrease in unemployment was again more marked for people aged 15-24 years (–25.4%) than for unemployed people aged 25 or over (–14.7%) when comparing the adjusted figures of April 2011 and 2010. Nevertheless, young people between 15 and 24 years of age continued to be somewhat more strongly affected by unemployment (rate of 7.9%) than people aged 25 to 74 years (5.9%).

Methodological notes:

In the labour force survey, unemployed persons are counted according to the employment status concept of the International Labour Organization and, consequently, are not equal to the number of registered unemployed.
The number of persons in employment as obtained in employment accounts and that from the labour force survey differ from each other. The differences are due to definitional differences and, above all, to the different methods and procedures applied in the two statistical systems. In employment accounts, the total number of persons in employment is estimated using all sources available (currently about 50 sources). The labour force survey is a household survey (currently integrated in the microcensus), which is conducted every year among one percent of the population in Germany. It involves the obligation to provide information and is harmonised across the EU. The number of persons in employment obtained by the labour force survey is smaller than that of employment accounts because, as experience shows, it is difficult in household surveys to entirely cover smaller activities, for example those performed by pupils and students. According to the international definition, such activities are considered as employment, too. Nevertheless, in the European Statistical System, the results of the labour force survey are used as a standard basis for calculating unemployment rates.

Annual results and more monthly results are available at the Internet. Here, you will also find detailed methodological notes on the calculation of the unemployment rate and on the estimation of adjusted results, which have been modified starting with this reference month.

Detailed data and long time series on the persons in employment according to employment accounts and on unemployed persons are available free of charge from the tables Erwerbstätige aus der Erwerbstätigenrechnung (13321-0001) and Erwerbstätige und Erwerbslose aus der Arbeitskräfteerhebung (13231-0001) in the GENESIS-Online database.

I.employment accounts
Persons in employment whose place of residence is in Germany¹⁾
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 %
2009	January	39.900	–1.5	0.6	40.274	0.0
	February	39.918	0.0	0.5	40.294	0.0
	March	39.992	0.2	0.3	40.265	–0.1
	April	40.114	0.3	0.2	40.236	–0.1
	May	40.151	0.1	0.0	40.182	–0.1
	June	40.133	0.0	–0.1	40.156	–0.1
	July	40.058	–0.2	–0.2	40.140	0.0
	August	40.085	0.1	–0.4	40.120	0.0
	September	40.351	0.7	–0.5	40.101	0.0
	October	40.494	0.4	–0.7	40.071	–0.1
	November	40.489	0.0	–0.6	40.085	0.0
	December	40.367	–0.3	–0.4	40.145	0.1
2010	January	39.748	–1.5	–0.4	40.119	–0.1
	February	39.755	0.0	–0.4	40.127	0.0
	March	39.921	0.4	–0.2	40.187	0.1
	April	40.162	0.6	0.1	40.274	0.2
	May	40.335	0.4	0.5	40.367	0.2
	June	40.402	0.2	0.7	40.429	0.2
	July	40.357	–0.1	0.7	40.440	0.0
	August	40.418	0.2	0.8	40.454	0.0
	September	40.725	0.8	0.9	40.472	0.0
	October	40.907	0.4	1.0	40.481	0.0
	November	40.947	0.1	1.1	40.539	0.1
	December	40.821	–0.3	1.1	40.593	0.1
2011	January	40.284	–1.3	1.3	40.663	0.2
	February	40.329	0.1	1.4	40.711	0.1
	March	40.482	0.4	1.4	40.753	0.1
	April	40.683	0.5	1.3	40.792	0.1

II. labour force survey
Unemployed persons and persons in employment ³⁾
	April 2011	Previous month		Same month of the previous year
	April 2011	March 2011	Change	April 2010	Change
³⁾ Persons in households aged 15 to 74 years, excluding persons performing compulsory military or civilian service. ⁴⁾ Share of unemployed in the labour force (persons in employment and unemployed). ⁵⁾ Share of persons in employment in all persons aged 15 to 74 years. ⁶⁾ Trend estimation by BV4.1.
	Original values
	in million		in %	in million	in %
Unemployed persons	2.54	2.73	–6.7	3.03	–16.1
Persons in employment	39.60	39.12	1.2	38.46	3.0
	shares in %		in %	shares in %	in %
Unemployment rate ⁴⁾	6.0	6.5	–7.4	7.3	–17.4
Employment rate ⁵⁾	62.8	62.0	1.3	60.9	3.2
	Adjusted results ⁶⁾
	in million		in %	in million	in %
Unemployed persons	2.57	2.61	–1.4	3.05	–15.6
Persons in employment	39.40	39.31	0.2	38.56	2.2
	shares in %		in %	shares in %	in %
Unemployment rate ⁴⁾	6.1	6.2	– 1.5	7.3	– 16.4
including:
Men	6.5	6.6	–1.6	7.8	–17.3
Women	5.7	5.8	–1.4	6.7	–15.1
Persons aged under 25 years	7.9	8.1	–2.7	10.6	–25.4
Former territory of the Federal Republic	5.1	5.2	–1.6	6.2	–18.1
New Länder	10.0	10.2	–1.7	11.7	–14.1
Employment rate ⁵⁾	62.5	62.3	0.3	61.0	2.4

>>> Brief methodological description

For further information please contact:
for employment accounts:
Ulf-Karsten Keil,
tel: +49 611 75 2633,
for the labour force survey:
Andreas Grau,
tel: +49 611 75 2124
www.destatis.de/contact

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

Service hours:
Mon - Tue: 8am - 5pm
Fri: 8am - 3pm
CET / CEST

Postal address:
65180 Wiesbaden
Germany

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