Press release No.361 / 2011-09-29

Labour market in August 2011: employment up again, unemployment down

WIESBADEN – The positive development on the labour market in Germany continued in August 2011. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the number of persons in employment living in Germany reached an all-time high (about 41.08 million). The number of unemployed was 2.50 million in August 2011, which was about 270,000 less than in August 2010.

According to provisional results of employment accounts, the number of persons in employment in August 2011 rose by 521,000 or 1.3% compared with August 2010. This means that, so far, in each month of 2011 the number of persons in employment living in Germany has been higher by more than half a million than in the relevant month of the previous year.
Compared with July 2011, the number of persons in employment was up by 58,000 or 0.1% in August 2011. Upon seasonal adjustment, that is, after elimination of the usual seasonal fluctuations, an increase of 10,000 persons is calculated, which is slightly less than in the previous months.

According to results of the labour force survey, unemployment in August 2011 fell slightly to 2.50 million people against July 2011 (–20,000 people). Compared with August 2010, however, unemployment was down by 270,000 people or 9.7%. When adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects (trend cycle component), the number of unemployed in August 2011 (2.51 million) was down by 30,000 people from July 2011, which was a decrease of 1.2%. The adjusted unemployment rate amounted to 6.0% in August 2011 and thus remained unchanged from the previous month. Compared with August 2010, it was down by 0.9 percentage points.

Annual results and more monthly results are available here (ILO labour market statistics) (Persons in employment).

Detailed data and long time series are available free of charge from the GENESIS-Online database. The data on persons in employment from employment accounts are available in table number 13321-0001, those on persons in employment and unemployment from the labour force survey in table number 13231-0001.

Methodological notes:

Persons in employment and unemployed persons are counted according to the employment status concept of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Therefore, unemployment as shown here must not be confused with registered unemployment as published by the Federal Employment Agency.

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 mainly due 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 60 sources). The labour force survey is a continuous 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.

For a brief description of employment accounts and further explanations on changing the calculations over to the Classification of Economic Activities, 2008 edition (WZ 2008), as part of the 2011 national accounts revision please refer to www.destatis.de -> Labour market -> Persons in employment.

Further methodological notes on monthly unemployment reporting are available at www.destatis.de -> Labour market -> ILO labour market statistics.

>>> Brief methodological description

I.employment accounts
Persons in employment whose place of residence is in Germany¹⁾
Year	Month	Original values			Seasonally adjusted²⁾
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 here. ²⁾ Seasonal adjustment by Census-X12-Arima.
		in million	in %		in million	in %
2009	January	40.111	–1.0	0.7	40.403	0.1
	February	40.119	0.0	0.6	40.425	0.1
	March	40.154	0.1	0.4	40.392	–0.1
	April	40.240	0.2	0.4	40.358	–0.1
	May	40.249	0.0	0.1	40.298	–0.1
	June	40.207	–0.1	–0.1	40.254	–0.1
	July	40.173	–0.1	–0.2	40.244	0.0
	August	40.232	0.1	–0.2	40.256	0.0
	September	40.505	0.7	–0.3	40.267	0.0
	October	40.651	0.4	–0.3	40.270	0.0
	November	40.646	0.0	–0.3	40.283	0.0
	December	40.447	–0.5	–0.2	40.301	0.0
2010	January	39.968	–1.2	–0.4	40.258	–0.1
	February	39.958	0.0	–0.4	40.263	0.0
	March	40.095	0.3	–0.1	40.326	0.2
	April	40.294	0.5	0.1	40.400	0.2
	May	40.419	0.3	0.4	40.465	0.2
	June	40.471	0.1	0.7	40.516	0.1
	July	40.463	0.0	0.7	40.537	0.1
	August	40.561	0.2	0.8	40.589	0.1
	September	40.847	0.7	0.8	40.608	0.0
	October	41.039	0.5	1.0	40.655	0.1
	November	41.067	0.1	1.0	40.701	0.1
	December	40.891	–0.4	1.1	40.745	0.1
2011	January	40.521	–0.9	1.4	40.820	0.2
	February	40.548	0.1	1.5	40.865	0.1
	March	40.691	0.4	1.5	40.925	0.1
	April	40.876	0.5	1.4	40.977	0.1
	May	40.974	0.2	1.4	41.016	0.1
	June	41.025	0.1	1.4	41.064	0.1
	July	41.024	0.0	1.4	41.099	0.1
	August	41.082	0.1	1.3	41.109	0.0

II. labour force survey
Unemployed persons and persons in employment³⁾
	August 2011	Previous month		Same month of the previous year
	August 2011	July 2011	Change	August 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	2.50	2.52	–0.8	2.77	–9.7
Persons in employment	39.70	39.36	0.9	39.03	1.7
	shares in %		in %	shares in %	in %
Unemployment rate⁴⁾	5.9	6.0	–1.7	6.6	–10.6
Employment rate⁵⁾	63.0	62.5	0.8	61.9	1.8
Adjusted results⁶⁾
	in million		in %	in million	in %
Unemployed persons	2.51	2.54	–1.2	2.88	–12.8
Persons in employment	39.65	39.57	0.2	38.74	2.3
	shares in %		in %	shares in %	in %
Unemployment rate⁴⁾	6.0	6.0	0.0	6.9	–13.0
including:
Men	6.1	6.2	–1.6	7.4	–17.6
Women	5.7	5.8	–1.7	6.4	–10.9
Persons aged under 25 years	8.9	8.9	0.0	9.7	–8.2
Persons aged 25 years or over	5.6	5.7	–1.8	6.6	–15.2
Former territory of the Federal Republic	4.9	5.0	–2.0	5.8	–15.5
New Länder	9.8	9.9	–1.0	11.1	–11.7
Employment rate⁵⁾	63.0	62.8	0.3	61.4	2.6

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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