Many vacancies: as few unemployed as ever

Things are going well on the German labor market: ever the Federal Employment Agency had counted as many unemployed as in November. Nearly 2.2 million people did not have jobs, this rate dropped to 4.8%.

The autumn recovery brought the number of unemployed in Germany to 2.186 million in November. This is the lowest value since the beginning of the census by the Federal Agency for Employment (BA). As announced by the Nuremberg authorities, the unemployment rate fell by 0.1 point to 4.8%. Compared to October, the number of jobseekers decreased by 18,000, against 182,000 in the same month of the previous year.

"This month, too, the labor market news is favorable," said BA CEO Detlef Scheele. Unemployment and underemployment have continued to decline, and employment, which is subject to social security contributions, has risen again, as the demand for labor is very strong.

Hundreds of thousands of vacancies

In November, about 807,000 vacancies were registered at the federal agency, 35,000 more than a year ago. Seasonally adjusted unemployment also declined. The number of job seekers corrected for seasonal influences fell to about 2.3 million. Thus, about 16,000 men and women were less unemployed than in October – their numbers decreased from 9,000 to the West and 7,000 to the East.

Underemployment, which also affects people who are currently receiving continuing education, for example, was about 3.1 million. Adjusted for seasonal variations, it decreased by 18,000 compared to the previous month. According to the latest data from the Federal Statistical Office, the number of people in employment was about 45 million in October, an increase of 37,000 from the previous month. Compared with the previous year, there were 559,000 more people employed.

The increase is mainly related to the increased number of employees subject to social security contributions. According to the forecasts of the Federal Agency from August to September, their number increased by 19,000 seasonally adjusted. This means that 33.4 million people in Germany have recently had regular employment, 675,000 more than the year before.