In April this year the number of gainfully employed people in Germany continued falling. According to provisional calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, the number of gainfully employed people in Germany amounted to 39.96 million in April which is a drop by 130,000 or 0.3% as compared to April in 2008. The economic crisis is more and more affecting the labour market. The full effects of the crisis are currently still partially compensated for by short-work. As compared to March 2009, the number of gainfully employed people increased by 68,000 (+0.2 %) in April.
In comparison with recent years this increase is a particularly small one which indicates that the usual spring recovery of the labour market will be very weak this year. Over the past five years the number of gainfully employed people had on average increased by 164,000 in the period from March to April.
After adjusting the above figures for season the number of gainfully employed people amounted to 40.12 million in April 2009 which is an increase by 39,000 people (-0.1%) as compared to March. 