For the second time, there is a measurable effect of the consequences of the Russian war of aggression on the German labor market. The number of unemployed rose to 2.47 million in July.
With an increase of 107,000, it increased more than usual at the beginning of the summer break, as the Federal Employment Agency (BA) announced on Friday in Nuremberg. The main reason: the recording of Ukrainian refugees, who have been comprehensively registered by the job centers since June. Unemployed refugees also appear noticeably in the unemployment statistics.
"Overall, the job market remains stable despite all the pressures and uncertainties," says BA board member Daniel Terzenbach. The unemployment rate is now 5.4 percent. Despite the increase, there were still 120,000 fewer unemployed in July than a year earlier. In the long term, the refugees have good chances on the job market, according to the BA.
A new survey by the Ifo Institute paints an optimistic picture of the mood. 90 percent of those who have fled to Germany from the Ukraine want to take up employment in this country.
42 percent are already working in their profession or are looking for a qualified job. 32 percent are also willing to work below their qualifications. The institute came to this conclusion in a survey of 936 Ukrainian refugees.
16 percent rate their opportunities on the German job market as low. Only ten percent see no prospect of working or are not interested.
To date, around one million refugees from Ukraine have been registered. Many have traveled further or back, and a significant number are not of working age. In July, 360,097 were registered with the BA as being able to work. Of these, 176,160 are registered as unemployed.
The Ukrainians are "predominantly highly qualified," says Tetyana Panchenko, a specialist at the Ifo Center for International Institutional Comparisons and Migration Research. 71 percent of those surveyed have a university degree, and 12 percent have professional training.
"The age structure also explains why they are so often looking for a job," says Panchenko. 72 percent of those questioned are between 30 and 49 years old, eleven percent between 18 and 29. A good 93 percent of those questioned are women.
However, the key question in labor market integration is how long the women will stay. According to the survey, 52 percent want to stay in Germany in the next two years, 46 percent want to return to Ukraine, and only two percent want to move on to another country.
Already at the beginning of the week, a gloomy foreboding could be read in the labor market barometer of the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB). Compared to June, it slipped 0.9 points down to 102.1 points.
"Employment continues to rise, despite the economic turmoil resulting from the war in Ukraine," explains Enzo Weber, head of the IAB research department "Forecasts and Macroeconomic Analysis".
While employment is still rising, one component of the forecast also points to rising unemployment soon. The forecast for unemployment has fallen by 1.4 points and is currently at 98.1 points. The leading indicator is based on a monthly BA survey of all local employment agencies. The average of the components "unemployment" and "employment development" forms the total value of the two barometers. The scale ranges from 90 (very bad development) to 110 (very good development).
"A possible stop in gas supplies from Russia represents a serious risk," warns Weber. "That would lead to production losses and also affect the labor market, especially short-time work."
According to the IAB, the main reason for the declining numbers lies in the process of integrating the Ukrainian refugees into the labor market and their statistical recording in the basic social security system in the summer months. The employment prospects are higher than the expectations for unemployment than ever before – in no other country are they currently as good.
The extent to which the labor shortage is reflected in the statistics is shown in particular by the number of vacancies: at around 1.7 million, it is at a record high. "The high demand for labor leads to bottlenecks in many areas," says Weber.
This development is reflected in the following evaluation: From January to June 2022, employers advertised over 5.4 million jobs - an increase of 14 percent compared to the first six months of the pre-Corona year 2019.
A record value was recorded in the first half of 2022. More than two million job offers were placed. This is shown by the latest job market evaluation by Index, which claims to be the largest job advertisement database in Europe. Advertisements in 249 print media, on 349 online job exchanges and 136,000 company websites as well as in the job portal of the Federal Employment Agency were analyzed.
The most urgent is the shortage of skilled workers in the trades and in construction: 1.2 million jobs were advertised in the first half of the year, i.e. almost every fourth position.
There is also a massive lack of employees in retail with almost 829,000 positions. Applicants were sought for 772,000 positions in industry and almost 500,000 in information and communication technology.
Most of the advertised positions in the first half of the year were in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, each with almost 1.2 million positions, and Baden-Württemberg with almost one million. In the city ranking, Berlin (over 436,000 positions) was at the top, well ahead of Munich (almost 280,000 positions) and Hamburg (more than 255,000 positions).
After the slump in the business climate index for July, the Ifo Institute even warned this week that we were on the brink of recession," said Peer-Michael Dick, Managing Director of Unternehmer Baden-Württemberg (UBW), on Friday in Stuttgart.
"In view of the reduction in gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, we are threatened with supply bottlenecks in winter that would hit companies and thus the labor market hard."
In order to prevent a massive increase in unemployment in the event of a gas shortage, it must be ensured that companies can fall back on short-time work benefits on a large scale, Dick said: “That is why the federal government must take precautions now for emergencies in order to create unbureaucratic framework conditions for the purchase of gas in a timely manner to be able to create short-time work benefits. In addition, companies should then be reimbursed for their social security contributions when they use short-time work, so that they can hold on to their workforces longer.”
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