Latest employment figures published

January 2004 saw the publication of preliminary official figures on employment developments in Germany in 2003. While the number of people in employment fell by 1%, the number of hours worked per person in employment increased slightly. Women increased their share of total employment to 46% from 45.6%.

According to provisional figures drawn up by the Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt, destatis) in cooperation with the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, IAB) at the Federal Employment Service (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA) and published in January 2004, the number of people in employment in Germany stood at about 38.3 million on average in 2003. This was a fall of 392,000 people or 1.0% on the previous year, and followed a decrease of 240,000 (-0.6%) in 2002 - the first decrease since 1997. The 2003 decrease in employment was the largest in the past decade (in 1993 there were 513,000 fewer persons in employment than in 1992 - a decrease of 1.4%). Total hours worked in the economy - ie the number of people in employment multiplied by the number of hours worked per person in employment - declined in 2003 by 0.9% from the 2002 figure to 55.3 billion hours.

In 2003, the number of hours worked per person in employment increased slightly by 0.1%. Each person in employment worked on average 1,445 hours in 2003, two hours more than in 2002. According to the calculations, the number of hours actually worked per person in employment showed a slight increase for the first time since 1992. In addition to an increase in the number of hours worked that resulted from fewer days off work being taken because of sickness, the total number of hours worked also increased because of a pronounced increase in the number of workers employed by more than one company.

In sectoral terms, the number of hours worked on average per person in employment continued to show differing trends in 2003. Compared with 2002, the number of hours worked per person in employment in manufacturing industry (excluding construction) and in agriculture and forestry rose by 0.3% in both cases to 1,457 hours and 1,857 hours respectively, after both figures had declined by 0.5% in the previous year. In the construction industry, every person in employment worked an average of 1,621 hours ( 0.2%) in 2003. In the service industries as a whole (trade, hotels and restaurants, transport and other services), there was a slight increase in the number of hours worked per person in employment - by 0.1% to 1,412 hours - for the first time since German reunification.

Of all people in employment, 17.9 million on annual average, or 46%, were women in 2003 (DE0308105F). Compared with 2002, women's share in employment thus increased by 0.4 percentage points. The relative increase in female employment in 2003 was partly due to the fact that women were less affected than men by job cuts compared with 2002. The number of men in employment decreased by 1.7% or 361,000 in 2003 compared with the preceding year, while the number of women in employment decreased by only 31,000 or 0.2%.

Individual economic sectors were affected differently by job cuts in 2003 - there were 3.2% fewer jobs in manufacturing and 0.1% fewer jobs in the services sector. This trend helps to account for the different decreases in employment between men and women. Some 83.3% of women in employment worked in the service industries, whereas the proportion of all men employed in this sector was only 59.0%. In manufacturing industry (including energy and construction) the situation was more or less reversed: 15% of all women in employment worked in this sector, compared with 38% of all men. Based on the annual average figures for 2003, only 1.8% of all women in employment and 3% of all men in employment worked in agriculture, forestry or fishing.

Moreover, the expansion of 'marginal' part-time employment that resulted from the legal changes in this area (DE0302105F) that came into effect in April 2003 has contributed to the growing share of women in employment. As the Federal Statistical Office puts it: 'Such forms of employment are increasingly made use of in the service industries and - as has been the case also in the past - lead to a higher share of women in total employment. That trend has not been offset by the accelerated increase in male self-employment by 1.5% (women 0.8%) compared with 2002 either; the increase in self-employment has been supported by the new start-up allowances (so-called Ich-AGs).'