Proportion of Employees on Short-Time Work Falls to Less than 1 Percent

The number of people on short-time working in Germany has fallen significantly in recent months. According to the latest estimate by the ifo Institute, which is based on the results of the ifo business surveys and figures from the Federal Employment Agency, around 277,000 people in Germany are still likely to have been on short-time working in May. This corresponds to 0.8% of all employees subject to social security contributions. The contact-intensive service sectors in particular have recovered noticeably from the corona crisis, so short-time working plays a much smaller role there than at the beginning of the year. In the manufacturing sector, short-time working is also declining, but not quite as strongly as the full order books would allow. The main reason for this is likely to be supply bottlenecks for input materials and raw materials, which are slowing down production activity at many companies.