Germany adds jobs amid crisis
January 6, 2015
As Europe has languished amid a protracted financial crisis that has slashed millions of jobs across the Continent, Germany has managed to buck the trend and profited handsomely from globalization, a new study has revealed.
Since 2007, Germany has added nearly 2.3 million jobs to its workforce, a total of 6 percent, according to a study by the consultancy firm Ernst & Young. This came at a time when other countries using the euro cut 3.8 million jobs. The only other country able to create new jobs during the crisis was Malta.
"The fact that Germany was able to maintain a reasonably stable employment rate proved in subsequent years - and to this day - to be a godsend," said Georg Graf Waldersee, head of E&Y's German division.
Europe's largest economy was also able to distinguish itself on a global scale, increasing its gross value added by 37 percent from 1995 to 2012. By the end of 2013, that figure had risen to 45 percent.
Germany may have seen its percentage of global gross value added drop from 9.2 to 6.3 percent, but its positive performance in absolute figures earned it laudations as a "winner of globalization" by the head of the Federation of German Industries, Ulrich Grillo.
As far as its robust employment figures go, Germany has been the exception to the rule in the eurozone. The most jobs were lost in Spain, for a total of 3.3 million from 2007 to 2014, or 16 percent of its workforce. Next came Greece (more than 1 million), Italy (871,000) and Portugal (570,000).
A consequence of Germany's resilient economy has been an influx of job-seeking foreigners. And it's not hard to imagine why: Never before in reunified Germany have so many people been employed. According to Germany's Federal Statistics Office, 42.6 million people in the country had a job in 2014.
cjc/sgb (dpa, AFP)