Press release No. 254 of 28 June 2024

Persons in employment resident in Germany, May 2024
0.0% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
+0.1% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+0.3% on the same month a year earlier 

WIESBADEN – Roughly 45.9 million persons resident in Germany were in employment in May 2024. According to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment was up by 20,000 (0.0%) compared with the previous month. There was a similar increase in April 2024 when the number of persons in employment rose by 25,000 month on month.

Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment in May 2024 was up by 68,000, or 0.1%, on April 2024. The present increase was therefore slightly smaller than the average May increase of the years 2022 and 2023 (+72,000 people).  

Slight upward trend year on year 

Compared with May 2023, the number of persons in employment in May 2024 was up by 0.3%, or 119,000. In April 2024, the year-on-year change amounted to 0.2%, and monthly rates between 0.2% and 0.4% were recorded in the period from January to March 2024. Compared with the previous year, the long-term upward trend on the labour market therefore continued in May 2024. 

Adjusted unemployment rate at 3.3% in May 2024 

According to results of the labour force survey, 1.58 million people were unemployed in May 2024. This represented an increase of 331,000, or 26.5%, compared with May 2023. The unemployment rate rose to 3.6% (May 2023: 2.8%). 

Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects, the number of unemployed stood at 1.47 million, which was a slight increase on April 2024 (+6,000; +0.4%). Compared with the previous month, the adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.3%. 

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 (only in German) on the statistics. For information on the microcensus and the labour force survey please refer to the relevant theme page (only in German) 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 (Destatis) website. Tables containing unemployment results (only in German) 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.