One striking aspect of this development is that the number of people working exclusively in marginal employment was recently (February 2015) 137,000 lower than a year earlier. The number of employees subject to social security contributions who also have a second job that is classed as marginal employment was also down by 61,000 on the previous year. At the same time, however, the strong growth in employment subject to social security contributions continued, increasing by 533,000 in a year-on-year comparison.
So far, the lower employment growth has not had any visibly negative impact on the unemployment trend. In April of this year, the number of people out of work fell for what is now the seven month running in seasonally adjusted terms, down by 100,000 on a year earlier. One factor could be that the size of the German workforce is now growing at a slower rate than in previous years because the early retirement options available to individuals who have been paying into the pension system for a long period of time have slowed, or even put a halt to, the increase in labor force participation among older employees.