Press release No. 186 of 3 May 2022
Persons in employment resident in Germany, March 2022
+0.2% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
+0.2% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+1.6% on the same month a year earlier
WIESBADEN – Roughly 45.2 million people resident in Germany (national concept) were in employment in March 2022 according to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). Employment thus exceeded the pre-crisis level of February 2020 for the first time. Compared with the previous month, the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment rose considerably by 85,000 (+0.2%), following an average monthly increase of 58,000 people, or 0.1%, in the period from March 2021 to February 2022. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of persons in employment in March 2022 was up by 0.1%, or 41,000, on February 2020, the month before the Covid-19 crisis began in Germany.
Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment in March 2022 rose by 112,000 (+0.2%) on February 2022. The increase was slightly more pronounced than compared with the March average of the three pre-crisis years from 2017 to 2019 (+103,000 people). The highest monthly value recorded so far is still 45.5 million persons in employment observed in November 2019.
Please note that short-time workers are counted as persons in employment in accordance with the employment accounts and labour force survey concepts.
Largest year-on-year increase in employment since May 2007
Compared with March 2021, the number of persons in employment was up by 1.6%, or +725,000, in March 2022. This was the eleventh consecutive month since May 2021 for which a larger absolute 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. A marked upward trend has become evident already since the summer of 2021, which goes beyond this base effect and continued in March 2022. The last time employment showed such a year-on-year increase was almost 15 years ago, that is, in May 2007.
Employment up 0.5% in the 1st quarter of 2022 on the previous quarter after seasonal adjustment
In the first quarter of 2022, the average number of persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) was roughly 45.1 million according to provisional calculations. The number of persons in employment thus was up a seasonally adjusted 217,000, or 0.5%, on the previous quarter. Detailed results for the first quarter of 2022 will be released on 18 May 2022.
Adjusted unemployment rate at 2.9% in March 2022
According to calculations based on the labour force survey, 1.26 million people were unemployed in March 2022. That was a decline of 435,000 (25.7%) compared with March 2021. The unemployment rate was 2.9% (March 2021: 4.0%).
Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects due, for instance, to weather conditions or strike, the number of unemployed stood at 1.28 million, which was a decline on February 2022 (-25,500 people; -2.0%). The adjusted unemployment rate decreased to 2.9% in March 2022 (February 2022: 3.0%).
Methodological note:
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 hardly subject to seasonal fluctuations. The results of month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year comparisons may differ considerably because of the Covid-19 crisis.
When the number of persons in employment was first calculated for the reference month of March 2022, the provisional monthly and quarterly employment results for 2021 and for January and February 2022 were recalculated as part of the regular revision of national accounting results. All sources of employment statistics that had additionally become available by the time of calculation were taken into account. As regards the monthly employment figures, the recalculation resulted in year-on-year change rates which only for February 2022 are 0.1 percentage points higher than the results published earlier. These are the only changes that resulted from the recalculation.
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. Detailed information can be found on a special page of the Federal Statistical Office's website.
Furthermore, a new European legal basis for the labour force survey entered into force in January 2021. On this basis, the results were revised back to January 2020. Due to the changes, the results from reference year 2020 are comparable with those compiled until 2019 only to a limited extent. The first results available from the 2021 microcensus were integrated in the calculation of the results for February 2022 and the monthly figures were revised accordingly. Within the system of the redesigned survey, the results at the current end of the series should be regarded as provisional.
More information:
A table containing monthly results on the number of persons in employment from 2017 onwards (unadjusted and seasonally adjusted values) from employment accounts can be found on the "Employment" page of the Federal Statistical Office's website. Tables containing results on unemployment from the labour force survey, including the unemployment rate, are available on the ”Unemployment” page. 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).
The number of persons in employment is also 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 Covid-19 crisis and in the financial and economic crisis of 2008/2009. The number is also provided on the Corona statistics webpage (www.destatis.de/corona) and in the Dashboard Germany (www.dashboard-deutschland.de) together with other indicators that can be used to assess the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Dashboard Germany portal of the Federal Statistical Office combines up-to-date indicators of official statistics and indicators of other data providers on the topics of economy and finance as well as health and mobility.
