ABSTRACT
Since the early 1970s the labor market situation in West Germany has deteriorated markedly. In 1986, total employment was about one million (4 percent) lower than in 1973; employment in the private sector even declined by some 8 percent. When the growth of the labor supply accelerated during the 1970s, due to demographic reasons and to higher participation rates of women, unemployment rose sharply. The number of workers registered as unemployed at the labor exchange increased from 273 thousands in 1973 to 2.2 millions in 1986. The unemployment rate (unemployed as a percent of the dependent labor force) went up from about 1 percent in the early 1970s to 9 percent in the mid-1980s.
