Number of persons in employment goes up by 1.4 mn

26 May '08

3 min read

Due to seasonal effects, the number of persons in employment declined by 558,000 (–1.4%) on the previous quarter. However, the decline was less marked than the average of the three years before (average quarter-on-quarter decline recorded for the first quarters of 2005 to 2007: –766,000 persons or –1.9%).

Upon seasonal adjustment, that is the elimination of seasonal fluctuations, the number of persons in employment in the first quarter of 2008 showed an increase of 220,000 (+0.5%) compared with the previous quarter. Besides the continued favourable economic trend, the exceptionally good weather during the winter months and the increased utilisation of seasonal short-time working allowance, introduced in late 2006, presumably had an additional positive impact on the employment trend.

Above all, employees profited from the positive development of the labour market in the first quarter of 2008. Compared to a year earlier, their number increased by 657,000 or 1.9% to about 35.4 million. The number of self-employed including family workers was up 0.7% to about 4.4 million in the reference quarter.

According to first provisional results of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), the average number of hours worked per person in employment in the first quarter of 2008 was down 0.8% to 366.2 hours on a year earlier. One of the reasons was that in the first quarter of 2008 two working days less were available than in the same quarter of the previous year.

Federal Statistical Office Germany

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