Short-Time Work in German Manufacturing Bucks the Downward Trend
The number of short-time workers in Germany fell to 504,000 in October, down from 580,000* in the previous month. This corresponds to 1.5 percent of the workforce. Bucking this trend, however, is short-time work in manufacturing, according to an ifo Institute estimate based on its surveys as well as on figures from the German Federal Employment Agency. In manufacturing, the number rose by 20,000 to 226,000 people (3.3 percent). “The bottleneck in intermediate products is really choking off production. With the current order backlog, there ought to be no more than 10,000 employees in manufacturing actually on short-time work,” says Timo Wollmershäuser, Head of Forecasts at ifo.
Increases were recorded by car manufacturers and their suppliers from 27,000* to 33,000 employees (3.5 percent), manufacturers of metal products from 20,000* to 31,000 (3.8 percent), and the chemical industry from 15,000 to 19,000 (2.2 percent). There was also a slight increase of 2,000 people on short-time work in the transport and warehousing sector, which is linked to manufacturing, for a new total of 69,000 people. “Here, too, the proportion of short-time workers – at 3.7 percent – is well above the overall average in the German economy,” says Stefan Sauer, a survey expert at the ifo Institute. Short-time work also increased at car dealerships, from 8,000* to 12,000 employees (1.8 percent).
In hospitality, on the other hand, short-time work was cut in half from 63,000* to 30,000 (2.8 percent). In wholesale, it fell from 27,000* to 19,000 (1.3 percent), and in retail from 37,000* to 20,000 (0.8 percent).
Before the pandemic, the number of short-time workers was 134,000 in February 2020; it then jumped to 2.6 million in March 2020 and reached a record 6 million in April. This was a unique development in Germany’s post-war history.
* Revised figure
