The German labour market in a nutshell

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Germany’s labour market was in such a poor state that the country was described as ’the sick man of Europe’. Since 2005, the German labour market has been performing extraordinarily well. Even in the crisis year 2009. Commentators around the world talked of the “German job miracle”. Against this background, the reasons for this remarkable turnaround and the institutional basics of Germany’s positive employment performance are of interest to policy-makers and analysts beyond Germany’s own borders. Therefore, this magazines offers a special section which sets out the main features and developments of the German labour market in a nutshell. It covers the following topics:

• The German labour market in an international context
• From ‘the sick man of Europe’ to the ‘German job miracle’
• Structure of the labour force
• Securing a Sustainable Supply of Skilled Labour
• Unemployment
• International comparisons
• Active labour market policies