{
  "id": 1672580,
  "title": "Erstmals seit Corona-Krise: Jobverluste jetzt auch bei Dienstleistungen",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/18/erstmals-seit-corona-krise-jobverluste-jetzt-auch-bei-dienstleistungen",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-18T07:51:08.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Handelsblatt",
    "slug": "handelsblatt",
    "url": "https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/erstmals-seit-corona-krise-jobverluste-jetzt-auch-bei-dienstleistungen/100247945.html"
  },
  "original_language": "de",
  "account": "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.",
  "summary": "Im Dienstleistungssektor ist die Zahl der Beschäftigten erstmals seit der Corona-Krise spürbar gesunken. Ein Sektor wächst aber immer noch.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}