This paper is to examine the trends and structures of unemployment as well as its spatial patterns in Germany. Germany once achieved a well-developed employment system and full employment. Since 1970, however, unemployment has been one of the major is...
This paper is to examine the trends and structures of unemployment as well as its spatial patterns in Germany. Germany once achieved a well-developed employment system and full employment. Since 1970, however, unemployment has been one of the major issues in Germany. During the last three decades the unemployment rate has risen to unprecedented levels and stayed high. After the German unification, especially, labor market is characterized by the mass unemployment and the structural selective process of unemployment to be imposed on German workers. And regarding to the spatial patterns of massive unemployment, this study shows critical disparities between South and North Germany being overlapped with new disparities between East and West Germany. We can explain the regional differentiation of unemployment on the base of typical mismatch of labour market allocation. It is also shown that massive unemployment is related not only to policy shifts in labor market but also to structural transformation after the unification.