ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, the German economy could have been considered a poor performer with regard to employment. The new Länder (federal states) in the East faced a sharp decline in employment due to the severe restructuring associated with the transformation from a centrally administered to a market economy. Employment in the East decreased from nearly 10 million in 1990 to 6 million in 1993, and remained at this level in the following years. In the old western Länder, after a remarkable rise in 1991 and 1992 (the ‘reunification-boom’), the number of people employed went down again to 28 million, a level which had already been achieved in 1990.
