Press release No. 075 of 29 February 2024

Persons in employment resident in Germany, January 2024
+0.1% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
-0.5% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+0.5% on the same month a year earlier

WIESBADEN – Roughly 45.7 million persons resident in Germany were in employment in January 2024. According to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment rose by 57,000 (+0.1%) on the previous month. Following increases of 27,000 in November 2023 and 28,000 in December 2023, the positive employment trend therefore continued at the start of the year.

Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment was down in January 2024 compared with December 2023 (-249,000 or -0.5%), which is normal for that time of the year. The month-on-month decrease in January 2024 was therefore less pronounced than in January 2023 (-278,000 people; -0.6%).

Solid upward trend year on year

Compared with January 2023, the number of persons in employment in January 2024 was up by 0.5%, or 232,000. In September, October and November 2023, the year-on-year change rate was also +0.5% in all three months. In December 2023, it stood at +0.4%. Compared with the previous year, the long-term upward trend on the labour market therefore continued at an unchanged pace.

Unemployment rate at 3.1% in January 2024

According to results of the labour force survey, 1.38 million people were unemployed in January 2024. This represented an increase of 31,000, or 2.3%, compared with January 2023. The unemployment rate was 3.1%, as in the same month of the previous year.

Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects, the number of unemployed stood at 1.37 million in January 2024, and was therefore unchanged on the previous month. Compared with the previous month, the adjusted unemployment rate therefore also remained stable 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. 

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 (Destatis). 

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 (Destatis) 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 (overview), 13321-0002 (unemployed persons, persons in employment and economically active population) and 13231-0003 (unemployment rates).

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.