Employment trends and structures in the old and the new federal states : results from the IAB establishment panel 1996

Abstract

"Since 1993 the IAB has maintained a representative information system of the demand side of the labour market in the form of its establishment panel for western Germany. With the inclusion of the new federal states in 1996, the formation of the IAB panel was completed in the whole of Germany. As the official statistics show the differences in the structure and the development of the two parts of the country less and less, the IAB establishment panel makes available a data basis which fills these two gaps at least in part, as the results can be shown separately for eastern and western Germany. The article focuses on the following points: First the employment expectations of companies for 1997 and in the medium term are described for eastern and western Germany. This supplements the article by Bellmann/Kölling on the business management and personnel-related determinants of these expectations for 1997, which also appears in this booklet. This is followed by analyses of the personnel inflows and outflows in the first half of 1996, in which the evaluation differentiates between enterprises with expanding employment, declining enterprises and stagnating enterprises. Even with declining economic activity in the national economy, the staff turnover in relation to the employment figure is considerable. Employment relationships are frequently commenced and terminated in parallel in many companies. The survey emphasis of the IAB establishment panel in 1996, 'Working hours and company flexibility', makes possible for the first time a detailed account of structural aspects of employment such as part-time work, 'marginal' part-time work, fixed-term employment and special forms of employment. Finally the methods used to collect and extrapolate the data from the IAB establishment panel are described. In the first wave in the new federal states the rate of returns was, at 71%, as highas the first wave in western Germany in 1993 and also the quality of the information given by eastern German companies reaches the standard set in western Germany." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Bellmann, L., Brixy, U., Düll, H., Ellguth, P., Kohaut, S., Kölling, A., Kühl, J. & Lahner, M. (1997): Beschäftigungsentwicklung und -strukturen in den alten und neuen Bundesländern. Ergebnisse aus dem IAB-Betriebspanel 1996. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 47-69.