Youth unemployment in Germany is very low by international standards. In an interview to the IAB-Forum magazine, IAB Director Joachim Möller attributes this success to three factors: the favourable economic situation, the introduction of “youth employment advisory services” (Jugendberufsagenturen) supporting the transition from school to employment and, in particular, the well-established system of dual vocational training, read full article

In recent years, Germany has taken in a great number of people who abandoned their home countries fleeing from the war, political persecution and economic hardship. In 2015, the number of those who fled to Germany amounted to almost one million which is a historic record high. Integration of these people into the labour market read full article

After many years of debates, 2015 saw the introduction of a statutory minimum wage of € 8.50 per hour (€ 8.84 since 2017) in Germany. While opponents of the minimum wage predicted negative effects on employment, some advocates expected the number of wage earners depending on social basic benefits to decrease significantly due to the minimum read full article

From “the sick man of Europe” to the “German job miracle”: the German labour market has been performing extraordinarily well since 2005. Even in the crisis year 2009, when Germany’s gross domestic product shrunk by more than 5 per cent, its employment level remained more or less stable. In an interview for this magazine, IAB Director Joachim read full article

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Germany’s labour market was in such a poor state that the country was described as ’the sick man of Europe’. Since 2005, the German labour market has been performing extraordinarily well. Even in the crisis year 2009. Commentators around the world talked of the “German job miracle”. Against read full article

Labour markets have become more international, more interlinked.  Many employees now expect that their work will take them abroad, to new labour markets.  Likewise, labour markets like ours in Germany require migration to meet the skills needs we have at home.  At the IAB, we see this internationalisation not only in research but also on read full article