Labor market: over three million unemployed people expected in summer

Despite the slight tendencies on the German labor market, experts expect that the limit of three million unemployed will be exceeded this summer. “The job market is somewhat strengthening. Nevertheless, unemployment will temporarily exceed the 3 million mark in summer,” said Enzo Weber, Economist at the Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research (IAB) in Nuremberg.

In May, 2.919 million people were registered unemployed in Germany. The Federal Employment Agency will announce its statistics for June 1 July.

The IAB work market barometer rose for the third time in a row in June 2025. The institute’s early indicator increased by 0.2 points compared to the previous month and thus now reached 99.1 points. Despite this increase, the value remains below the neutral brand of 100 points, which indicates a still behavioral development of the German labor market. The barometer shows the assessments of all German employment agencies for the next three months.

Employment attracts slightly

“The labor market barometer struggles to get out of the valley that it had slipped until March,” said Weber. In particular, the component for the prediction of unemployment is still clearly in the negative area with 97.8 points – despite a slight increase of 0.3 points compared to the previous month. This indicates that unemployment figures will hardly improve in the coming months.

In contrast, the employment component develops more positively. In June it rose by 0.2 points to 100.4 points and thus signals a slightly positive tendency to the labor market. However, Weber emphasizes that this development is only slight stabilization. “The job market is slowly recovering from the previous setbacks, and larger jumps are not to be expected at short notice.”