Labour market risks in the transformation process in eastern Germany: results of the Arbeitsmarkt-Monitor (labour market monitor) from 1989 to 1994

Abstract

"From November 1990 Infratest Sozialforschung (Infratest social research) carried out on commission for the Federal Employment Services (Bundesanstalt für Arbeit) eight labour market surveys in the 'new' Bundesländer (i.e. the federal states of the former GDR) and East Berlin. The first of these surveys was carried out in November 1990 (also including details on the labour situation of November 1989), the last was in November 1994. The Arbeitsmarkt-Monitor is structured as a representative longitudinal study and facilitates a closer examination of certain labour market risks in eastern Germany for the period of the first five years after the reunification. At this point it mainly concerns aspects immediately connected with labour force participation (loss of employment, prospects of reintegration into the labour market, non-adequate employment, long-term unemployment, displacement from the 'official' labour market). The risk of dismissal (which is less selective with regard to person-related characteristics) in the eastern German transformation process depended heavily upon the sectoral (as well as the regional) emphasis in the economic restructuring process. In the case of reintegration, the labour market risk factors known in the west are showing through increasingly. It is obvious that it is the women who have come off worst in the adjustment crisis in the east, although even this is to be seen in a more subtly differentiated way and not exclusively. Above all older women (but also older men), single mothers, lowly qualified women and men, female skilled workers, women in industrial or technical occupations are affected. The better employment prospects of more highly qualified employed persons were in part 'bought' by the acceptance of non-adequate work, with the consequence of an increased pressure on lowly qualified persons. Older members of the labour force were affected in a particular way by the 'turbulence' of the reunification period. The age cohorts who were able to make use of the early retirement regulations were mainly withdrawn from the labour market prematurely (in a way which was regarded ambivalently by those concerned but was financially safeguarded). In view of extremely slight reintegration prospects, succeeding age cohorts, who were not prominently affected by the employment problem at the beginning of the transformation process, are growing increasingly into long-term unemployment in cases of a loss of employment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Brinkmann, C. & Wiedemann, E. (1995): Arbeitsmarktrisiken im ostdeutschen Transformationsprozeß. Ergebnisse des Arbeitsmarkt-Monitors 1989 bis 1994. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 28, No. 3, p. 323-338.