In addition to unemployment and employment trends, employment agencies in the survey also estimate the extent to which limited available labor makes it difficult to fill job openings in their agency district. The following response options are converted to a metric system:
No, not significantly
Yes, to a limited extent
Yes, to a greater extent
Yes, to a significant extent
The mean of all responses forms the labor shortage index. It is defined on a scale of 0 to 10, with higher values signaling greater labor shortages in the job filling process.
The IAB labour market barometer provides good guidance for the labour market development in the near future, more precisely in the next three months. It is based on the expertise in all German employment agencies. Every month, their top-level staff is asked to assess the development of local unemployment and employment over the next three months. The IAB labour market barometer includes - in addition to component A that signals the unemployment development - a component B that signals the employment development. The IAB labour market barometer is the mean value of both partial indicators. It provides a more comprehensive picture of the expected development of the German labour market in the short term. The IAB labour market barometer is regularly released towards the end of month. Its scale goes from 90 (i.e. very negative outlook) to 110 (i.e. very positive outlook).
The European Labour Market Barometer falls by 0.2 points to 99.5 points in April compared to the previous month. The leading indicator from the European Network of Public Employment Services and the IAB is turning negative again after two recent increases. The unemployment forecast component remains unchanged at 98.9 points, thus clearly negative. The employment forecast component is barely positive at 100.1 points, after a decline of 0.3 points compared to the previous month. "The European Public Employment Services still see no turnaround for the better in their labour markets," explains Enzo Weber, IAB head of forecast.
The time series of the European Labour Market Barometer, including its components for all 17 participating employment services, is available at www.iab.de/Presse/elmb-components. More information on the European Labour Market Barometer is available in our Magazine IAB-Forum: Launch of the “European Labour Market Barometer"
Run by the European Network of Public Employment Services and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the European Labour Market Barometer is based on a survey of the local or regional employment agencies in 17 PES services. A leading indicator of employment and unemployment in labour markets, the survey has been carried out jointly by the employment services and the IAB since June 2018. Agencies are asked to assess both the unemployment and employment outlook for the next three months, resulting in two components and one barometer for each PES. The European barometer is then derived from these national scores in the form of a weighted average.
The IAB’s regional labour market forecasts are set out in a series of tables below. The data includes the number of people in employment subject to social security contributions, the number of unemployed, the number of unemployed broken down by benefit system, the number of people able to work and eligible for benefits, and the unemployment rates at the level of the federal states and labour market districts. Until issue 1/2015, this forecast was published as ‘Regional labour market forecasts for the number of unemployed and the number of people in employment subject to social security contributions’. The figures are calculated by the Regional Research Network at the IAB.
The IAB Occupational Panel provides a comprehensive database for analysing the characteristics and development of occupations in Germany. The current version of the panel covers the years 2012 to 2022 and is an update of the 2012-2018 Occupational Panel (see documentation). The changes to the first version of the Occupational Panel are listed below. The occupational panel is based on the IAB Employment History (BeH), which contains information on all employees subject to social security contributions and marginal part-time employees. The employment characteristics contained therein are aggregated at the occupational level and summarised as totals or shares, e.g. number of full-time equivalents and persons, shares by age, qualification or gender. The data is aggregated at the level of occupational groups and the requirement level according to the Classification of Occupations 2010 (KldB2010, 3-digit plus 5th digit). For data protection reasons, the dataset only contains information on occupational group-requirement level combinations with more than 100 persons in 2012 (411 of these occupational aggregates in 2012). The data has also been merged with occupational information from previous IAB projects, such as the substitutability potential (Grienberger/Matthes/Paulus 2024), the Digital Tools Index (Genz/Janser/Lehmer 2019) and the Greenness of Jobs Index (Janser 2019/2024). We also provide the occupational panel separately for women and men, as well as aggregations at sectoral and federal state level (also separately for women and men).
Documentation
Grienberger, Katharina; Janser, Markus; Lehmer, Florian (2022). The Occupational Panel for Germany. Journal of Economics and Statistics. Online First. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2022-0053.
Information on the terms of use of this publication can be found on the website of de Gruyter publishing group.
The IAB Working Time Measurement Concept (IAB-Arbeitszeitrechnung, AZR) is the key product for the number of hours worked in Germany and underlies the German national accounts figure on labour input. The AZR is of great significance for the comprehensive analysis of labour market trends as well as cyclical fluctuations. It links changes in the number of hours worked as a result of collective agreements and economic fluctuations with changes in the employment structure and types of employment and thereby produces a differentiated picture of the scope, structure and development of the annual hours worked of gainfully employed persons. The results and estimations of the AZR on working hours and volume of work are part of the short-term projections of the IAB on the labour market published twice a year as IAB Brief Reports (IAB-Kurzberichte).
The volume of work – that is, the overall number of hours worked in the economy in Germany – is determined conceptionally in a differentiated componentwise accounting concept. This means that calendar effects, collectively agreed standards (working hours and annual paid holidays), economic effects (short-time work, overtime and working time accounts), as well as person-related (sick leave and part-time work) and other miscellaneous components (labour disputes and multiple job holding), are considered separately. The data for these individual working time components have been obtained from a multitude of available official statistics and surveys. Their differences concerning the covered period, the type of survey, and the degree of coverage are taken into account in the calculation concept, for instance, via modern methods of time-series analysis. Moreover, the componentwise calculation also makes it possible to identify the contribution made by, and the importance of, these individual working time components for the overall development as a whole. Individual lengthening or shortening factors can thus be subjected to a separate analysis, their effect considered in isolation and their influence determined.
The quarterly published time series of the AZR on average working hours and volume of work of the employed are available in differentiated form
for employees or self-employed persons and family workers
by quarters since 1991 up to the present margin
in the so-called A21 breakdown according to the classification of economic activities, edition 2008 (WZ 2008)
for employees subdivided according to working time components as well as according to full-time, part-time and multiple job holding.
The publications are accompanied by IAB press releases.
In addition, the AZR's annual time series on average working hours and volume of work are also differentiated according to gender and age group. These results are available no earlier than nine months after the end of the respective reporting year.
The IAB is conducting extensive research on the effects of the introduction and relaxation of coronavirus containment measures in Germany. These include, for example, contact restrictions and closures of industries. The data base collects data on these measures by federal states and, in some cases, districts at daily precision. The regional differences in the introduction of measures can be used for analyses of their effects on, for example, the development of the labour market, economic activity or the spread of the virus.
