In Germany and worldwide, the corona virus caused one of the worst economic downturns in many years. Economic output in Germany fell by more than five percent, similar to the 2008/2009 debt crisis. This crash across the board, with the orders of the companies, with the customers of shops, on the stock exchanges and in tourism, however, tore comparatively few employees into the abyss. This results from the 2021 labor market report, which the Federal Statistical Office published on Monday.
The statisticians poured numbers into it, which employees got off comparatively well in the pandemic and who were the ones who suffered. It is noticeable that the number of permanent positions increased in the past year despite further corona waves, which, according to the Federal Office, is mainly due to more employees subject to social insurance. These are considered to be comparatively good positions because they usually have a certain level of protection through social security and protection against dismissal. Millions of these employees had to go into state-financed short-time work during the crisis, but were thus saved from being dismissed. Over the year as a whole, the number of employees increased by 115,000 compared to 2020 to around 41 million.
On the other hand, the crisis played a bad role for many marginalized workers, i.e. mini-jobbers and people with temporary contracts who often lost their jobs. It is comparatively easy for employers to get rid of them. In the pandemic, they had to give up the buffer when things weren’t going so well.
The self-employed suffered severe failures
The statisticians also found a downward trend among Germany’s self-employed. Their numbers have been falling for more than ten years, but the virus appears to be accelerating this trend. Their number fell by 108,000 people compared to 2020, that is almost three percent. Self-employed people such as shopkeepers, landlords or artists had particularly severe failures that were not always offset by state aid.
But the figures also show that some industries defied the crisis or even benefited from it. The construction, for example, was concreted and hammered as usual, the industry continued to discontinue the entire pandemic. And after a slump in 2020, service providers can at least have a little more staff again for 2021.
The Federal Statistical Office only presented average figures for 2021, so it gives a rather rough picture. According to the labor market expert Hermann Gartner from the Nuremberg Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research, the labor market continued to improve in 2021. “During the past year, employment continued to grow, including jobs subject to social security,” he said on Monday Süddeutsche Zeitung. Even the new corona measures after the summer could not have reversed this trend, said Gartner. “The recovery has slowed down, but the growth continued in the fall.”