Press release No. 034 of 30 January 2026
Persons in employment resident in Germany, December 2025
0.0% on the previous month (seasonally adjusted)
-0.3% on the previous month (not seasonally adjusted)
-0.2% on the same month a year earlier
WIESBADEN – Roughly 45.9 million persons resident in Germany were in employment in December 2025 (national concept). According to provisional calculations of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the seasonally adjusted number of persons in employment therefore fell slightly (-5,000; 0.0%) compared with the previous month. It was down by an average of 11,000 month on month in the period from May to November 2025.
Without seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment in December 2025 fell by 126,000 (-0.3%) compared with November 2025. This month-on-month decline was larger than the average recorded for December for the years 2022 to 2024 (-109,000 persons).
Year-on-year decline in employment continues
Compared with December 2024, the number of persons in employment in December 2025 was down by 69,000 (-0.2%). In October and November 2025, the year-on-year rate of change was -0.1%. The downward trend in the year-on-year labour market figures, which has been observed since August 2025, therefore continued.
Employment in 4th quarter of 2025 down 0.1% on previous quarter after seasonal adjustment
According to provisional calculations, the number of persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) averaged roughly 46.1 million in the 4th quarter of 2025. Following seasonal adjustment, the number of persons in employment was down by 25,000 (-0.1%) from the previous quarter. Detailed results for the 4th quarter of 2025 will be released on 18 February 2026.
Adjusted unemployment rate at 3.8% in December 2025
According to results of the labour force survey, 1.60 million people were unemployed in December 2025. That was an increase of 184,000, or 13.0%, compared with December 2024. The unemployment rate rose to 3.6%, which represented an increase of 0.4 percentage points on the same month of the previous year (December 2024: 3.2%).
Adjusted for seasonal and irregular effects, the number of unemployed in December 2025 stood at 1.68 million, an increase of 7,000 on November 2025 (0.4%). The adjusted unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8%.
Methodological notes:
The differing comparative periods must be taken into account in all press releases on short-term indicators. Short-term economic monitoring focuses on seasonally adjusted comparisons with the previous month or quarter. These reflect short-term economic trends. Year-on-year comparisons, by contrast, enable long-term comparisons of levels and are largely unaffected by seasonal fluctuations.
When the number of persons in employment was first calculated for the reference month of December 2025, the provisional monthly and quarterly employment results for 2025 were recalculated as part of the regular revision of national accounting results. For this purpose, all additional sources of employment statistics that had since become available were taken into account. As regards the monthly employment figures, the recalculation resulted in year-on-year change rates which, for August and September, are 0.1 percentage points higher than the results published earlier. The annual result of 46.0 million persons in employment, on average, whose place of employment was in Germany (domestic concept) and the year-on-year change rate of 0.0%, which were communicated in press release no. 001 of 2 January 2026, have not been changed by the recalculation.
The number of persons in employment from the employment accounts differs from that of the labour force survey, which has been integrated into the microcensus. The differences are mainly due to the different methods and procedures applied in the two statistics, although some are caused by definitions that are not completely identical. Background information on the differences in the results is available in the explanatory notes (only in german) on the statistics.
Detailed information on the microcensus and the changeover to the 2022 Census is provided on a special page (only in german) on the website of the Federal Statistical Office. The effects on labour market reports are presented on a topic page (only in german).
Persons in employment and unemployed persons are counted according to the employment status concept of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Therefore, the unemployment figures shown here differ from registered unemployment as determined and published by the Federal Employment Agency in accordance with the German Social Code. In the European Statistical System, the results of the labour force surveys are used as a standard basis for calculating unemployment rates.
More information:
A table containing monthly results on the number of persons in employment (unadjusted values and seasonally adjusted values) from the employment accounts is shown on the "Employment" page of the Federal Statistical Office’s website. Tables with unemployment results (only in German) from the labour force survey including the unemployment rate are also available on this page. Detailed data and long time series are provided in the GENESIS-Online database. Data on persons in employment from the employment accounts are available in tables 13321-0001 (months), 13321-0002 (quarters) and 81000-0011 (years). Monthly data on persons in employment and unemployed persons from the labour force survey can be found in tables 13231-0001 (overview), 13231-0002 (unemployed persons, persons in employment and economically active population) and 13231-0003 (unemployment rates).
Results for the labour market can also be found on the Economic Dashboard, which is part of Dashboard Germany (www.dashboard-deutschland.de) (only in German). In this data portal, the Federal Statistical Office brings together up-to-date indicators from official statistics producers and other data providers on the topics of the economy, finance, the labour market, construction, housing, energy and Ukraine. The portal also contains the Economic Pulse Monitor (Pulsmesser für die Wirtschaft) (only in German) tool for real-time economic monitoring.
Special webpage on skilled labour:
A special webpage of the Federal Statistical Office combines facts and figures on the subject of skilled labour (www.destatis.de/fachkraefte) (only in German). It provides data on demography, employment, education and immigration. The information offered ranges from projections of the future size of the labour force to analyses of the labour supply and data on labour migration and the vocational training market. New information is added continually.