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By Georg Moeritz
Dresden. Thousands more jobs will be created in Saxony next year. The scientists in the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg announced on Monday that above all Leipzig and Dresden "Employment engines remain in Saxony". The number of employees with social insurance is expected to rise to an annual average of 1,655,400 next year. That would be 7,400 more than the average for this year.
Labor market researchers expect 1.7 percent more socially insured employees in Leipzig and 1.3 percent more in Dresden on average next year. This puts Leipzig ahead of the rest of Germany. In a comparison of the federal states, however, Berlin is in the lead with expected employment growth of 1.2 percent. The labor market experts see strong differences within Saxony: In the Ore Mountains, the Riesa region and Central Saxony, their tables show a slight decline in employment.
The Nuremberg labor market researchers' forecasts are based on the assumption that the economy will grow again next year. They assume that the German economy will shrink by 0.6 percent this year, but will grow again by 1.1 percent next year. They have calculated the possible growth in employment based on this assumption. However, the researchers write that the stated growth is an average value. In the worst case scenario, employment in Saxony could also shrink by around 12,000 jobs; in the ideal case, there could be an increase of 27,000 additional jobs.
Employment growing more slowly than before corona
Labor market researcher Anja Rossen, who contributed to the study, said that employment growth remains weaker than before the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment is also rising in almost all federal states. This is also due to the fact that an increasing number of refugees from Ukraine are allowed to register as unemployed. According to Rossen, unemployment will rise slightly more in western Germany than in eastern Germany in the coming year. Employment growth will be roughly the same in the west and east. Before coronavirus, employment grew more strongly in the west.
Rossen described it as good news that the demand for employees is still hardly falling. Many companies are trying to retain their workforce even in difficult economic phases. Since the global financial crisis, it has become apparent that employment no longer reacts as strongly to economic fluctuations as it used to.
Unemployment rises in Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz
According to the IAB forecast, the average number of unemployed people in Saxony will rise by 1,100 next year to 131,500, an increase of 0.8 percent. The researchers expect unemployment to fall in the regions of Pirna, Riesa, Oschatz and Central Saxony. In the major cities, however, unemployment is likely to rise by just over one percent despite the increase in employment.
For the Plauen and Bautzen regions, the forecast shows an increase in unemployment of more than three percent. However, there is also a wide range in these figures: for the Bautzen region, for example, between 7.2 percent fewer unemployed and 12.8 percent more unemployed than the average for this year.
Saxony's employment agency-In the latest labor market report on November 2, Klaus-Peter Hansen said that the labor market is now "under pressure". In October, more people were laid off than hired in Saxony. At the same time, there are more than 39,000 vacancies in Saxony, the vast majority of which are full-time and permanent. Employment in service sectors such as healthcare and education has continued to rise this year. However, in addition to these "winning sectors", there were also losers according to Hansen: trade, temporary employment agencies and the construction industry are shrinking.
