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Economy in Brief

German Manufacturing Employment Declines
by Louise Curley  December 17, 2012

German manufacturing is beginning to feel the effects of the slowdown in the rest of the Euro Area. Data released today and shown in Haver's GERMANY database show that employment in the manufacturing industry dropped in October to 5,254 thousand from 5,261 in September, the first drop this year. The October decline in employment was, however, partly offset by an increase in hours worked. Hours worked increased to 706 million in October from 656 million in September. The main cause of the decline in employment has been the slowdown in the year to year increases in sales, as can be seen in the first chart.

Data on German wages and salaries for all industry were also released today and are shown in the second chart compared with the comparable data for manufacturing. Because of the importance of manufacturing in the German economy, the series for the total industry is not too different from that of manufacturing alone. Although both series show a small increase in October, they remain well below the peak reached in May of this year.

Germany Manufacturing
2012 Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb
Employees  (Thous) 5254 5261 5257 5228 5201 5192 5188 5185 5173
Hours Worked  (Mil) 706 657 655 680 664 666 643 645 694
Sales  (Bil EUR) 142785 138824 132008 139699 141424 138153 130784 150885 133875
Sales (Y/Y%) 5.76 -6.95 0.41 3.91 5.52 -4.02 1.32 1.07 5.53
Wages & Salaries (Mil EUR) 19018 18480 18675 19235 21070 21350 20151 18864 17874
Wages & Salaries (Y/Y%) 5.40 4.30 5.19 5.13 6.00 7.29 5.15 4.75 5.23
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