Press release No. 040 of 31 January 2024
Persons in employment resident in Germany, December 2023
+0.1% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
-0.3% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+0.4% on the same month a year earlier
WIESBADEN – Roughly 46.0 million persons resident in Germany were in employment in December 2023. According to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment rose slightly by 23,000 (+0.1%) compared with the previous month. Month on month, the number of persons in employment increased by 24,000 in November 2023, and 13,000 in October 2023. After seasonally adjusted declines in August and September, employment therefore showed a positive trend again in the 4th quarter of 2023.
Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment in December 2023 was down on November 2023 (-120,000 or -0.3%). This is a usual development at the end of the year. Prior to this, employment figures had reached a new record high each month in the period from September to November 2023. The decrease in December 2023 was somewhat more pronounced than in December 2022 (-107,000 people; -0.2%).
Slower upward trend year on year
Compared with December 2022, the number of persons in employment in December 2023 was up by 0.4%, or 203,000. In September, October and November 2023, the year-on-year change rate was +0.5% in all three months. In January and February 2023, it stood at +1.0%. Compared with the previous year, the long-term upward trend on the labour market therefore continued at a slower pace.
Employment figures in the 4th quarter of 2023 up 0.1 % on the previous quarter after seasonal adjustment
According to provisional calculations, the number of persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) averaged roughly 46.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. After seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment rose slightly by 28,000, or +0.1%, from the previous quarter. Detailed results for the fourth quarter of 2023 will be released on 16 February 2024.
Adjusted unemployment rate at 3.1% in December 2023
According to results of the labour force survey, 1.30 million people were unemployed in December 2023. This represented an increase of 13,000, or 1.0%, compared with December 2022. The unemployment rate was 2.9%, as in the same month a year earlier.
Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects, the number of unemployed stood at 1.37 million in December 2023, which was an increase of 5,000 on the previous month. Compared with the previous month, the adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.1%.
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. Year-on-year comparisons, by contrast, enable long-term comparisons of levels and are hardly influenced by seasonal fluctuations.
When the number of persons in employment was first calculated for the reference month of December 2023, the provisional monthly and quarterly employment results for 2023 were recalculated as part of the regular revision of national accounting results. For this purpose, all additional sources of employment statistics that had since become available 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 were the only changes that resulted from the recalculation. The annual result of an average of 45.9 million persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) and the year-on-year change rate of +0.7 %, which were communicated in press release no. 001 of 2 January 2024, remain unchanged.
The number of persons in employment from the employment accounts differs from that of the labour force survey, which has been integrated into the microcensus. The differences are mainly due to the different conceptual approaches (national or domestic concept) of the two statistical systems. Background information on the differences in the results is available in the explanatory notes on the statistics. For information on the microcensus and the labour force survey please refer to the relevant theme page on the website of the Federal Statistical Office.
Persons in employment and unemployed persons are counted according to the employment status concept of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Therefore, the unemployment figures shown here differ from registered unemployment as determined and published by the Federal Employment Agency in accordance with the German Social Code. In the European Statistical System, the results of the labour force surveys are used as a standard basis for calculating unemployment rates.
More information:
A table containing monthly results on the number of persons in employment (unadjusted values and seasonally adjusted values) from the employment accounts is shown on the employment page of the Federal Statistical Office’s website. Tables containing unemployment results from the labour force survey including the unemployment rate are also available on this 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). Monthly data on persons in employment and unemployed persons from the labour force survey can be found in tables 13231-0001 to 13231-0003.
Labour market results are also available on Dashboard Germany at www.dashboard-deutschland.de (only in German). This data portal of the Federal Statistical Office combines up-to-date indicators from official statistics producers and other data providers on the topics of the economy, finance, health and mobility. The portal also contains the interactive Economic Pulse Monitor (Pulsmesser für die Wirtschaft) tool (only in German) for real-time economic monitoring.
Special webpage on skilled labour:
A special webpage of the Federal Statistical Office combines facts and figures on the subject of skilled labour (www.destatis.de/fachkraefte) (only in German). It provides data on demography, employment, economic activity, education and immigration. The information offered ranges from projections of the future size of the labour force to analyses of the labour supply and data on labour migration and the vocational training market. New information is added continually.
