Erstmals seit Corona-Krise: Jobverluste jetzt auch bei Dienstleistungen
Im Dienstleistungssektor ist die Zahl der Beschäftigten erstmals seit der Corona-Krise spürbar gesunken. Ein Sektor wächst aber immer noch.
After the industry, the employment sector is now feeling the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, marking the first decline since the pandemic began in Germany in the second quarter of 2026. The Federal Statistical Office reported a noticeable drop in the number of employed individuals compared to the previous year's quarter. The total count of employed people in the service sector fell by 0.1% or 27,000 people across the fiscal year.
While there was a 1.5% employment increase in the public sector, including education and healthcare, most other services experienced a decline. Employment in trade, transportation, and accommodation sectors decreased by 1.1%. In the industrial sector, as previously observed, employment continued to dwindle, with 2.0% fewer workers recorded.
Similarly, the construction industry saw a 0.7% decrease, and the agriculture and forestry sectors experienced a 1.5% reduction. Overall, Germany had approximately 45.7 million working individuals in the second quarter of 2026, which was a 0.1% decrease from the first quarter and a 0.5% decline from the previous year. Of these, 3.6 million were self-employed, showing a further decline.
On average, the employed individuals worked about 315 hours per month. The overall labor volume for the economy contracted by 0.5% to 14.4 billion hours due to the reduced number of employees.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
