The construction industry also proved to be an employment engine during the corona pandemic.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The reopening of many industries after the Corona restrictions is having a positive effect on the labor market. The Ifo employment barometer rose from 103.6 points in August to 104.3 points. This is the highest level since October 2018. “German companies are hiring more and more new employees,” says Ifo expert Klaus Wohlrabe.
The barometer is based on the employment intentions of around 9,000 companies and is calculated exclusively for the Handelsblatt on a monthly basis.
It is true that the corresponding sub-indicator fell slightly compared to the previous month. “But the mechanical engineering and electrical industries are planning to increase their number of employees,” explains Wohlrabe. Delivery problems with semiconductors, for example, have so far only had a limited impact on employment plans.
In the hospitality industry, there was still a certain degree of caution with new hires in August – probably also because the number of new corona infections per 100,000 inhabitants rose significantly in the past month. However, since this development slowed down, caution has now given way to a certain confidence.
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In the regular survey “Companies in the Covid-19 crisis” by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) at the beginning of September, almost every third company in the hospitality industry stated that they were severely affected by the effects of the pandemic.
There has been a major leap up in the willingness of companies in the service sector to hire. According to Wohlrabe, the IT industry, among other things, is planning to hire new employees at a high level. In retail, the slightly positive trend for new hires has remained almost constant compared to the previous month.
Employers surveyed by the personnel service provider Manpower are almost euphoric
The construction industry proved to be a real engine of employment during the pandemic – interrupted only by two brief dampers in April and May 2020 and in February and March of this year. At the moment, employment intentions in the industry are as optimistic as they were at the beginning of 2020.
The roughly 1,000 employers that the personnel service provider Manpower asked for its quarterly labor market barometer are also looking positively ahead. 46 percent anticipate an increase in staff in the final quarter of this year, 17 percent expect a shrinking workforce.
Seasonally adjusted, the employment prospects have risen to the strongest value since the survey began 18 years ago. For the third quarter, only 17 percent of the companies had expected an increase in staff, five percent wanted to cut jobs.
According to the labor market barometer, which is available exclusively to the Handelsblatt, large companies with at least 250 employees are particularly willing to expand. The willingness to hire is subdued in small businesses with fewer than ten employees. Regionally, the demand for personnel is currently particularly high, especially in the north of the republic. In the rest of the country, too, the employment outlook is more positive than ever since the survey began in 2003.
More: More minimum wages, the right to remote work or deregulation? What the parties are planning on the labor market.