Berlin (Reuters) – Among companies in Germany, the willingness to hire new staff is higher than it has been in eight months.
The employment barometer rose by 0.3 to 100.2 points in April, as the Munich Ifo Institute announced on Wednesday in its survey of 9,500 companies. That is the highest value since August 2022. “The increase in employment continues, although growth is slowing down, also because of the shrinking population,” said Klaus Wohlrabe, head of the Ifo surveys. “Service providers are the drivers of job creation in Germany.”
In industry, the positive and negative responses to employment plans are balanced. While mechanical engineers or the electrical industry are looking for new employees, the paper industry and printers are planning to downsize. “Among the service providers, tourism and the events industry in particular stand out,” said Wohlrabe. There is still a lot of catching up to do among consumers. In retail, on the other hand, there is a slight tendency to get by with fewer staff. The difficult situation in the main construction trades – which is suffering from rising interest and material costs – is also reflected in employment plans: companies are very reluctant to hire new staff.
In their spring forecast for the federal government, the leading economic research institutes anticipate an increase in employment. The number of people in employment is therefore likely to rise from around 45.6 million last year to around 46.0 million in the coming year. After that, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), more people will retire than new ones. On average, the German labor market would then lose almost 200,000 workers per year. Although around 350,000 people are likely to immigrate from abroad every year, the working-age population is shrinking. Bringing more people into the labor market – for example through better childcare or more flexible working time models – could dampen the decline in the labor force, but not stop it.
(Report by Rene Wagner, edited by Elke Ahlswede. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected])