In the year 2006 more than 6.4 million people were employed by about 715.300 businesses and organisations in the service sector which was 400.000 more people (+6.6%) than in the previous year 2005. And this trend seems to have continued also in the first quarter of 2008. This can be assumed if one looks at the findings of the “Konjunkturstatistische Erhebung”, a survey which is carried out every three months in selected fields of the service sector by the Federal Statistical Office.
These fields include transport, telecommunications, real estate and housing, the leasing of moveable objects, electronic data processing and data bases, research and development as well as other services.
An annual survey showed that between 2005 and 2006 turnover grew by 55.9 billion Euros (+8.0%) to 755.8 billion Euros.
Quite interesting is the structure of the businesses and organizations in the above mentioned fields of the service sector. Almost three quarters (73.1%) of these generated an annual turnover of less than 250.000 Euros in 2006. These businesses, however, generated just 5.9% of the total turnover in these fields and employed only 15.3% of all employees.
In the field of transport worked more than 1.3 million people in almost 85.750 businesses. Their share in creating new jobs was +3.4% (43.500 new jobs). 9 400 businesses in the field of telecommunications employed 648.650 people in the year 2006 (3.6% more than in the previous year). More than 51.750 businesses operated in the field of data bases and electronic data processing in 2006 where 20.150 new jobs were created in the period between 2005 and 2006.
363.050 companies (a plus of 22.950 as compared to 2005) operated in other fields of the service sector and 68.3% of these businesses were one-man businesses. These businesses comprise free lancers such as lawyers, tax consultants and architects but also cleaning companies, detective agencies and debt collection agencies. These businesses were once more living up to their reputation as job generators. In this field worked 3.4 million people which is more than half (53.5%) of the total number of employees working in the fields examined in the study. As compared to the previous year the number of jobs in this field increased by more than 277.950 (+8.8%). 