Press release No. 407 of 30 October 2024
Persons in employment resident in Germany, September 2024
0.0% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
+0.4% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
+0.1% on the same month a year earlier
WIESBADEN – Roughly 46.0 million persons resident in Germany were in employment in September 2024. According to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment fell slightly by 18,000 (0.0%) compared with the previous month. This was the fourth consecutive decrease. According to revised results, month-on-month employment also declined by an average of 18,000 people in each of the months June, July and August 2024.
Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment in September 2024 rose by 162,000 (+0.4%) on August 2024 due to the autumn upturn. The usual seasonal increase in employment was therefore considerably smaller than the average September increase of the years 2022 and 2023 (+210,000 people).
Year-on-year upward trend continues to weaken
Compared with September 2023, the number of persons in employment in September 2024 was up 0.1%, or 53,000. In the period from January to August 2024, the monthly rates of change compared with a year earlier declined from +0.5% to +0.2%. The year-on-year comparison therefore shows that the long-term positive trend in the labour market continued, but the increase has almost petered out now.
Employment figures down 0.1% in the 3rd quarter of 2024 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 46.1 million in the 3rd quarter of 2024. After seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment was down 45,000, or 0.1%, on the previous quarter. Detailed results for the third quarter of 2024 will be released on 15 November 2024.
Adjusted unemployment rate at 3.5% in September 2024
According to results of the labour force survey, 1.47 million people were unemployed in September 2024. This represented an increase of 153,000, or 11.6%, compared with September 2023. The unemployment rate rose to 3.3% (September 2023: 3.0%).
Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects, the number of unemployed stood at 1.55 million in September 2024, which was a decline of 9,000 people on August 2024 (-0.6%). The adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.5% compared with the previous month.
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 largely unaffected by seasonal fluctuations.
When the number of persons in employment was first calculated for the reference month of September 2024, the provisional monthly and quarterly employment results for 2024 were recalculated as part of the regular revision of national accounting results. For this purpose, all additional sources of employment statistics that had become available by the time of calculation were taken into account. The recalculation of the employment figures has resulted in year-on-year change rates which are no more than 0.2 percentage points lower than the results published earlier.
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 of the two statistical systems (national and domestic concept). 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 website. Tables containing unemployment results (only in German) from the labour force survey including the unemployment rate are also available on this page. For detailed data and long time series please refer to 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). In this data portal, the Federal Statistical Office brings together up-to-date indicators from official statistics producers and other data providers on the topics of the economy, finance, the labour market, construction, housing, energy and Ukraine. The portal also contains the 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, 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.
Important information regarding the GENESIS-Online database:
Our database's new user interface will leave the beta phase and be available as the main interface version from 5 November 2024 onwards. The new interface will offer faster data retrieval and intuitive table search and customisation options. There will also be changes to the structure of the machine-readable flat file (CSV) format and the data output format for table downloads. For further details and other important information on the release, please see the info page of the new GENESIS-Online database.
