Press release of the Institute for Employment Research of 15.6.2010
The decline in full-time work is slackening off
The number of persons in full-time work dropped in the first quarter of 2010 by 318,000 or 1.4 per cent as against the corresponding quarter of the previous year, according to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). The decline in the third and fourth quarters of 2009 at 1.7 per cent had been even greater in comparison to the year before. For the first time since the beginning of the economic crisis, average working time increased perceptibly.
As IAB labour market researchers Eugen Spitznagel and Susanne Wanger say: "While flexible working times and short-time work absorbed the brunt of the economic crisis on the German labour market in 2009, now, after economic revival, people are once again working longer hours". The reduction of credit hours on working time accounts is coming to a halt, and a certain amount of paid overtime is being done again. In the first quarter of 2010 employees carried out roughly 0.8 overtime hours per week, about 0.15 hours more than the year before. From experience, roughly the same amount of unpaid overtime can be added to paid overtime. The normal working time of full-time employees in accordance with centralised bargaining agreements became somewhat longer and reached 38.14 weekly hours in the first quarter of 2010.
The number of short-time workers has continued to fall. It amounted to about 933,000 on a monthly average for the first quarter of 2010, after 1.12 million in the third and 984,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009. However the hourly volume of short-time work has risen somewhat, as more hours have been cancelled per short-time worker than before . The rate of those on sick leave has been rising slightly since the middle of 2009 and at roughly 3.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2010 was higher than the level for the corresponding quarter of the year before (3.4 per cent).
In industry full-time employment is clearly more widespread than in the private, social and public services areas that have largely been spared by the crisis up to now. That is why the figure for full-time employees is more dependent upon the economic trends than that of part-time employees. The economic revival is causing the decline in employment in industry to level off. Part-time employment is continuing to rise strongly but not quite as strongly as in 2009. In the first quarter it lay 1.7 per cent above the level of the previous year, after 2.6 and 2.1 per cent in the two quarters before, respectively.
All in all, 358.5 working hours were completed in the first quarter of 2010 per person in employment, 4.5 hours or 1.3 per cent more than a year ago. For the first time since the beginning of the large-scale recession, average working time increased noticeably. This had been roughly 10 hours per quarter lower in 2009 on average.
The macroeconomic volume of work – that is the sum of all paid working hours completed – increased in the first quarter by 1.0 per cent. As the macroeconomic production was 1.7 per cent greater than the year before, productivity per working hour rose again for the first time in 18 months and lay 0.7 per cent above the value for the previous year.
Table showing the development of working time omponents: http://doku.iab.de/grauepap/2010/tab-az10q1engl.pdf.