Überarbeitung der IAB-Arbeitszeitrechnung im Rahmen der Generalrevision 2024 der Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnungen

"This research report details reasons, methodology and results of the revision of the IAB Working Time Measurement Concept („IAB-Arbeitszeitrechnung“; IAB-AZR) as part of the 2024 general revision of the German National Accounts („Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnungen“; VGR). The IAB-AZR is integrated into the national accounts of the Federal Statistical Office and regularly provides long comparable time series on hours worked in Germany. Since the concepts and definitions of the national accounts are binding for the IAB-AZR, the 2024 general revision of the VGR implies also changes for the IAB-AZR. The 2024 general revision did not provide for any extensive methodological changes. The existing concepts of the European System of Accounts (ESA) for international national accounts introduced in 2014 will remain valid and will only change fundamentally with the next general revision in 2029. Both the classification of economic activities (NACE) and the ESA itself are currently being reviewed and revised. In the context of the 2024 general revision the opportunity was taken to review and update the data sources for each component of hours worked, to incorporate revised data and to integrate previously unused statistical data bases into the calculations. In order to minimise discontinuities in the time series, the results for Germany are newly calculated for the years back to 1991. A key reference value from the national accounts that feeds into the IAB-AZR is the Employment Statistics (“Erwerbstätigenrechnung”; ETR) of the Federal Statistical Office. As these were also recalculated as part of the revision of the national accounts, the corresponding time series differentiated by occupational status were as well updated in the IAB-AZR. There were also changes in the calculation of the number of persons in multiple jobholding, the number of hours lost due to short-time work, and the annual hours worked by the self-employed and assisting family members. Furthermore, reference is made to current challenges in the modelling of individual working time components, for example in the context of measuring sick leave. According to new calculations, the number of persons employed reached a new high in 2023 with an annual average of 46.0 million. In contrast, the average annual hours worked of the labour force have fallen continuously in recent decades, particularly due to the growing rate of part-time employment. In total, the persons employed worked 61.44 billion hours in 2023, but this is still below the level of the years before the Covid-19 pandemic. All in all, the need for revision was little: For individual years, the annual hours worked by the labour force deviate from the previous results by -0.3 to +0.2 percentage points in the rates of change. In terms of volume of work, there are deviations of between -0.2 and +0.1 percentage points from the previous results." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))