Job market
February 19, 2015
According to provisional figures from Germany's national statistics office, the number of those in work increased by 412,000 compared with the same quarter in 2013, an increase of 1 percent.
The number was also 165,000 up on the previous quarter. The office said that the biggest rises came in the services industry.
The office also revealed that the number of immigrants to Germany had also increased. Some 667,000 people migrated to Germany in the first half of 2014 - some 112,000 more than in the same period a year earlier.
Part-time work
Another study released on Thursday, by the government-affiliated Institute for Employment Research (IAB), found that more and more German women are resorting to part-time work. The Nuremberg-based center found that eleven million women are in part-time work, twice as many as in 1991. Meanwhile the total number of women in work rose by 21 percent.
The proportion of men who work part-time has also risen four-fold since 1991, though their numbers are still a long way behind those of women. Over a quarter of the men surveyed said that the reason why they work part-time is because they can't find full-time jobs.
By comparison, a similar proportion of women - 26 percent - said they gave up working full-time to look after families. Barely any men said they gave up work for this reason.
bk/uhe (AFP, dpa)