Friday 29th January 2021
Quota increases to 6.3 percent
Lockdown has an impact on the labor market
The German labor market presents itself as "robust" but with clear "traces" in lockdown: in January – as is usual with the season – more people are unemployed than in December. Compared to the previous year, almost half a million more people are jobless.
The number of unemployed in Germany rose by 193,000 to 2.901 million in January, as is typical of the season. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage points to 6.3 percent in January, the Federal Employment Agency announced on Friday in Nuremberg. The January increase this year was even slightly lower than in the previous year. From December 2019 to January 2020, the number of unemployed rose by 198,000.
For the first time, the effects of the current corona-related lockdown have been taken into account in labor market statistics. The employment agency has collected data for its statistics by January 13th. Compared to the same month last year, however, unemployment rose significantly. In January 2021, 475,000 more people were unemployed than in January 2020, as the Federal Agency further announced.
"All in all, the job market was in a robust state in January. However, the measures to contain the corona pandemic are leaving their mark," said the Federal Agency's chairman, Detlef Scheele.
In the period from January 1st to January 25th, 78,000 companies reportedly registered short-time work for 745,000 people – but this does not correspond to the actual number of short-time workers;
The most recent valid figures for short-time work actually implemented come from November. This month the Federal Agency paid short-time work benefits for 2.26 million people. The peak of the wave of short-time work was in April 2020, when almost six million people were on short-time work.
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