Press release No. 044 of 1 February 2022
Persons in employment resident in Germany, December 2021
+0.1% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
-0.2% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+1.1% on the same month a year earlier
WIESBADEN – Roughly 45.3 million people resident in Germany (national concept) were in employment in December 2021 according to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). After an average monthly increase of 55,000 people, or +0.1%, in the period from March to November 2021, the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment rose by 49,000 (0.1%) in December 2021 compared with the previous month. The number of persons in employment is still below the pre-crisis level nevertheless. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of persons in employment was down by 0.4%, or 198,000, in December 2021 on February 2020, the month before the Covid-19 crisis began in Germany.
Please note that short-time workers are counted as persons in employment in accordance with the employment accounts and labour force survey concepts.
Usual seasonal decline in employment on November 2021
Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment was down in December 2021 on November 2021 (by 93,000, or -0.2%), which is normal for that time of the year. The decline was less pronounced than usual in comparison with the December average of the three pre-crisis years of 2017 to 2019 (-123,000 persons).
Largest year-on-year increase in employment since April 2019
Compared with December 2020, the number of persons in employment was up by 1.1%, or 483,000, in December 2021. This was the eighth consecutive month since May 2021 for which a year-on-year increase was recorded. In February 2021, however, the year-on-year change rate had been -1.6%.
Until May 2021, this calculated positive year-on-year development was mainly due to the sharp fall in the number of persons in employment in the spring of 2020, when the measures taken to contain the Covid-19 pandemic started to have a strong impact on the labour market. Nevertheless, a marked upward trend has become evident since the summer of 2021, which goes beyond this base effect and continued in December. The last time employment increased even more noticeably year on year was in the pre-crisis month of April 2019, when it went up by 1.1% (+490,000 people) compared with April 2018.
Employment markedly up in the 4th quarter of 2021
In the 4th quarter of 2021, the average number of persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) was roughly 45.4 million according to provisional calculations. Upon seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment was up by 157,000, or +0.3%, from the previous quarter. Detailed results for the 4th quarter of 2021 will be released on 17 February 2022.
Adjusted unemployment rate unchanged at 3.2% in December 2021
According to calculations based on the labour force survey, 1.27 million people were unemployed in December 2021. That was a decline of 355,000 (-21.9%) compared with December 2020. The unemployment rate was 2.9% (December 2020: 3.7%).
Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects due, for instance, to weather conditions or strike, the number of unemployed stood at 1.37 million, which was a minor decline on November 2021 (-11,600 people; -0.8%). The adjusted unemployment rate remained at 3.2% in December 2021.
Methodological notes:
The differing comparative periods must be taken into account in all press releases on short-term indicators. Short-term economic monitoring focuses on comparisons with the previous month or previous quarter. These reflect short-term economic trends. In contrast, a comparison with the previous year is intended to offer a long-term comparison of levels and is not subject to seasonal fluctuations. Due to temporarily strong decreases during the current Covid-19 crisis, the results of month-on-month/quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year comparisons may continue to differ considerably. To enable direct reference to the pre-crisis level, all press releases on short-term indicators available in seasonally adjusted form will, for the time being, include a comparison with February 2020 or the fourth quarter of 2019.
When the number of persons in employment was first calculated for the reference month of December 2021, the provisional monthly and quarterly employment results for 2021 were recalculated as part of the regular revision of national accounting results. For this purpose, all additional sources of employment statistics that had become available until the time of calculation were taken into account. As regards the monthly employment figures, the recalculation resulted in year-on-year change rates which, for August and November, are 0.1 percentage points higher than the results published earlier. These are the only changes that resulted from the recalculation. The annual result of 44.9 million persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) and the year-on-year change rate of 0.0%, which were communicated in the press release of 3 January 2022 (No. 001/22), remained unchanged, too.
The number of persons in employment from the employment accounts differs from that of the labour force survey. The differences are mainly due to the different conceptual approaches (national or domestic concept) used in the two statistical systems. For more information on the reasons why the results of the labour force survey differ from those of the employment accounts please refer to the explanatory notes on the statistics.
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 in accordance with the German Social Code. In the European Statistical System, the results of the labour force survey are used as a standard basis for calculating unemployment rates.
The microcensus and the integrated labour force survey were redesigned both in technical and in methodological terms; the new approach was introduced at the beginning of 2020. For technical reasons, data collection involved restrictions for some time. Therefore, the results as from January 2020 were first determined by means of an estimation based on the results of the previous periods, considering current developments.
In accordance with the new European legal basis for the labour force survey, results of the redesigned survey were first published for May 2021. At the same time, the results of the period from January 2020 to April 2021 were revised on this basis. Due to the changes, the results from survey year 2020 are comparable with those compiled until 2019 only to a limited extent. As a result of changing over to the redesigned data collection, the results at the current end of the series are still subject to uncertainties and must therefore be regarded as provisional.
| Year | Month | Original values | Seasonally adjusted 2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| persons | change on previous month | change on the same month of the previous year | persons | change on previous month | ||
| millions | % | millions | % | |||
| 1 Results of employment accounts as part of national accounting: persons in employment whose place of residence is in Germany (national 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 X13-ARIMA method using JDemetra+. | ||||||
| 2019 | January | 44.761 | -0.7 | 1.1 | 44.988 | 0.1 |
| February | 44.825 | 0.1 | 1.2 | 45.032 | 0.1 | |
| March | 44.903 | 0.2 | 1.1 | 45.080 | 0.1 | |
| April | 45.039 | 0.3 | 1.1 | 45.128 | 0.1 | |
| May | 45.103 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 45.140 | 0.0 | |
| June | 45.088 | 0.0 | 0.9 | 45.129 | 0.0 | |
| July | 45.094 | 0.0 | 0.9 | 45.150 | 0.0 | |
| August | 45.082 | 0.0 | 0.7 | 45.136 | 0.0 | |
| September | 45.331 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 45.146 | 0.0 | |
| October | 45.427 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 45.166 | 0.0 | |
| November | 45.496 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 45.196 | 0.1 | |
| December | 45.358 | -0.3 | 0.7 | 45.212 | 0.0 | |
| 2020 | January | 45.049 | -0.7 | 0.6 | 45.263 | 0.1 |
| February | 45.091 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 45.291 | 0.1 | |
| March | 44.998 | -0.2 | 0.2 | 45.178 | -0.2 | |
| April | 44.729 | -0.6 | -0.7 | 44.824 | -0.8 | |
| May | 44.572 | -0.4 | -1.2 | 44.622 | -0.5 | |
| June | 44.567 | 0.0 | -1.2 | 44.619 | 0.0 | |
| July | 44.557 | 0.0 | -1.2 | 44.618 | 0.0 | |
| August | 44.587 | 0.1 | -1.1 | 44.646 | 0.1 | |
| September | 44.849 | 0.6 | -1.1 | 44.665 | 0.0 | |
| October | 44.942 | 0.2 | -1.1 | 44.677 | 0.0 | |
| November | 44.923 | 0.0 | -1.3 | 44.624 | -0.1 | |
| December | 44.773 | -0.3 | -1.3 | 44.618 | 0.0 | |
2021 | January | 44.369 | -0.9 | -1.5 | 44.572 | -0.1 |
| February | 44.363 | 0.0 | -1.6 | 44.552 | 0.0 | |
| March | 44.438 | 0.2 | -1.2 | 44.617 | 0.1 | |
| April | 44.531 | 0.2 | -0.4 | 44.632 | 0.0 | |
| May | 44.607 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 44.667 | 0.1 | |
| June | 44.721 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 44.780 | 0.3 | |
| July | 44.777 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 44.843 | 0.1 | |
| August | 44.837 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 44.898 | 0.1 | |
| September | 45.133 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 44.944 | 0.1 | |
| October | 45.265 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 44.990 | 0.1 | |
| November | 45.349 | 0.2 | 0.9 | 45.044 | 0.1 | |
| December | 45.256 | -0.2 | 1.1 | 45.093 | 0.1 | |
| December 2021 3 | Previous month | Same month of the previous year | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2021 4 | Change | December 2020 | Change | ||
| 1 Persons in households aged 15 to 74 years. 2 There may be rounding discrepancies as results are shown in rounded form. 3 Results based on the labour force survey, provisional. 4 Results based on the labour force survey, revised and provisional. 5 Unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force (persons in employment and unemployed) aged 15 to 74 years. 6 Persons in employment as a percentage of all persons aged 15 to 74 years. 7 Trend cycle component (X-13-ARIMA method using JDemetra+; calculation by Eurostat). | |||||
| Original values | |||||
| millions | % | millions | % | ||
| Unemployed persons | 1.27 | 1.34 | -5.7 | 1.62 | -21.9 |
| Persons in employment | 42.08 | 42.07 | 0.0 | 41.88 | 0.5 |
| percentage shares | % | percentage shares | % | ||
| Unemployment rate 5 | 2.9 | 3.1 | -5.5 | 3.7 | -21.6 |
| Employment rate 6 | 68.0 | 67.9 | 0.1 | 67.6 | 0.6 |
| Adjusted results 7 | |||||
| millions | % | millions | % | ||
| Unemployed persons | 1.37 | 1.38 | -0.8 | 1.73 | -20.6 |
| Persons in employment | 41.64 | 41.62 | 0.1 | 41.30 | 0.8 |
| percentage shares | percentage points | percentage shares | percentage points | ||
| Unemployment rate 5 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 0.0 | 4.0 | -0.8 |
| Men | 3.5 | 3.5 | 0.0 | 4.4 | -0.9 |
| Women | 2.9 | 2.9 | 0.0 | 3.6 | -0.7 |
| Persons aged under 25 years | 6.1 | 6.2 | -0.1 | 7.9 | -1.7 |
| Persons aged 25 to 74 years | 2.9 | 2.9 | 0.0 | 3.6 | -0.7 |
| Employment rate 6 | 67.3 | 67.2 | 0.1 | 66.7 | 0.6 |
Crisis Monitor enables comparison between coronavirus crisis and financial and economic crisis
The employment figures also form part of the Crisis Monitor (www.destatis.de/krisenmonitor), by means of which the Federal Statistical Office compares the development of major short-term indicators in the coronavirus crisis and in the financial and economic crisis of 2008/2009. The Crisis monitor complements the Corona statistics webpage (www.destatis.de/corona), which provides statistical information on the economic and social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
More information:
Detailed data and long time series are available from the GENESIS-Online database. Data on persons in employment from the employment accounts are available in tables 13321-0001 (months), 13321-0002 (quarters) and 81000-0011 (years). Data on persons in employment and unemployed persons from the labour force survey can be found in tables 13231-0001 to 13231-0003 (months).
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