Press release No. 276 of 30 June 2022

Persons in employment resident in Germany, May 2022
+0.1% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
+0.1% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+1.7% on the same month a year earlier

WIESBADEN – Roughly 45.4 million people (original value) resident in Germany (national concept) were in employment in May 2022 according to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). Employment thus exceeded the pre-crisis level by more than 100,000 people (seasonally adjusted). Compared with the previous month, the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment rose by 34,000 (+0.1%), following an average monthly increase of 60,000 people, or 0.1%, in the period from March 2021 to April 2022. The total number of persons in employment thus has grown since the peak of the third Covid-19 wave in Germany observed in spring 2021, largely unaffected by the further infection waves and – so far – by the consequences of the war in Ukraine. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of persons in employment in May 2022 thus was up by 0.3%, or 130,000 people, on February 2020, the month before the Covid-19 crisis began in Germany.

Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment in May 2022 rose by 67,000, or +0.1%, on April 2022. In May there is typically an upturn in the labour market, which however was smaller in 2022 than the average in May of the three pre-crisis years 2017 to 2019 (+97,000 people). The highest employment figure 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.

Stable upward trend

Compared with May 2021, the number of persons in employment was up by 1.7% (+752,000 people). This corresponds to the year-on-year change rate recorded in April 2022 (+1.7%; +761,000 people). The upward trend recorded in the labour market thus remains at a high level.

Adjusted unemployment rate at 2.8% in May 2022

According to calculations based on the labour force survey, 1.19 million people were unemployed in May 2022. That was a decline of 385,000 people (-24.4%) compared with May 2021. The unemployment rate was 2.7% (May 2021: 3.7%).

Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects due, for instance, to weather conditions or strike, the number of unemployed stood at 1.24 million, which was slightly less than in April 2022 (-13,500 people; -1.1%). The adjusted unemployment rate in May 2022 was down to 2.8%, which is lower than in April (2.9%).

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 hardly subject to seasonal fluctuations.

It should be noted that both the measures taken to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and the inflow of refugees from Ukraine since March 2022 have led to an increased uncertainty of employment estimates.

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 is available on a special page of the Federal Statistical Office’s website. Within the system of the redesigned survey, the results at the current end of the series should be regarded as provisional.

Furthermore, a new European legal basis for the labour force survey entered into force in January 2021. The new EU regulation requires back-calculation of the time series of monthly results from 2020 back to 2009 in order to offset the break in the time series caused by the methodological changes introduced by the new regulation. With reference month May 2022, the time series in the publications of the Federal Statistical Office is revised for that period.

More information:

A table with monthly results on the number of persons in employment  as from 2017 (unadjusted values and seasonally adjusted values) from the employment accounts is shown on the employment page at 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), 13321-0001 (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 of other data providers on the topics of economy and finance as well as health and mobility.

The Federal Statistical Office is not only an information provider but also offers many career opportunities: www.destatis.de/karriere (only in german).