Wednesday, October 31, 2007

German Employment and Unemployment September 2007

According to provisional results of the Federal Statistical Office, the number of persons in employment in Germany and whose place of residence was Germany was approximately 40.05 million in September 2007, that was 676,000 persons more (+1.7%) than in September 2006. The number of persons in employment hence continued to increase strongly thanks to a good short-term economic trend and a positive development on the apprenticeship market.

Compared with the previous month of August 2007, the number of persons in employment was up by 341,000 (+0.9%) in September 2007. Seasonally adjusted, that is upon elimination of the typical seasonal fluctuations, employment rose by 36,000 persons in September 2007 on the previous month.

The employment/population ratio, that is the share of persons in employment in the total population aged 15 to 64 years, was 70.7% and thus continued to be above the European employment target agreed to be achieved in line with the so-called Lisbon Strategy by 2010.

In addition to calculating the number of persons in employment for reference month September 2007, the monthly and quarterly employment data published so far were recalculated back to February 2007 as part of the regular revision of national accounts, taking account of all sources of employment statistics now available. Altogether, the recalculation required changing the previously published monthly employment figures by a maximum of 0.1%.

Apart from the usual employment reporting, the Federal Statistical Office is now providing again an extended range of monthly unemployment data according to the internationally comparable ILO concept. The new time series is based on additional monthly processings of data from the Europe-wide harmonised labour force survey. This is the first time that monthly unemployment data are available for Germanyfrom that statistics which is carried out in a harmonised form at the EU level. For further information please refer to the methodical explanations at the end of this press release.

According to the results obtained by the method described there, a seasonally adjusted 3.51 million persons were unemployed in September 2007. That was a decrease by 600,000 (–14.7%) from September 2006. Accordingly, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate harmonised according to the EU definition – measured as the share of unemployed in the total labour force – was 8.1%, which was considerably lower than a year earlier (9.6%).

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