European comparison: Frankfurt has fewer unemployed people than other major cities

The city of Frankfurt has a reputation as a banking and finance metropolis.

No one has yet come up with the idea of ​​advertising it as “the young city on the Main”.

The statement would be covered by the statistics.

Only 15.7 percent of Frankfurters are older than 65 years.

This is the lowest value among the 15 largest German cities - in the front-runner Essen, 21.8 percent of the residents have reached retirement age.

When it comes to the proportion of children under the age of 14, Frankfurt is again higher than average at 14.5 percent.

Bernhard Biener

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung

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Findings of this kind can be read in the most recent volume that has just been published, “Frankfurt am Main in a comparison of regions and cities 2020”.

The regular statistical publication of the city has been supplemented for the first time by a comparison with European cities of a similar size.

Frankfurt does not stand out as much here, but the age quotient, that is the number of people over the age of 64 in relation to those of working age between 20 and 64, is in the lower midfield at 24 percent.

Instead, it reached 44 percent in Turin, a good 50 percent in Geneva and 55.3 percent in Lisbon.

Few unemployed in European comparison

"It's exciting that we have so few seniors in the city," said City Councilor Eileen O'Sullivan (Volt), responsible for statistics, when presenting the numbers.

However, she held back with an interpretation.

"We only provide the data." The question of whether the small number of seniors may have something to do with a lack of care and nursing services, so that older people have to move to the surrounding area, could perhaps be answered by the social department.

But even the sober numbers suggest consequences.

O'Sullivan cited the composition of the downtown advisory council or other forms of citizen participation as examples.

Frankfurt does well across Europe with an unemployment rate of four percent.

Only the English city of Leeds and the Lithuanian capital Vilnius have lower values, each with three percent.

The fact that the figure does not correspond to the unemployment rate used in Germany, which had risen to seven percent in Frankfurt in 2020, shows one difficulty of the European comparison: "The figures are recorded differently and by no means all cities participate in the Europe-wide data collection on urban Quality of life,” said O'Sullivan.

In her own words, the head of department, who is also responsible for EU affairs, gives cause for thought that decisions in the European Union are made on the basis of different data.

It is easier to compare the figures for German cities.

The basis was the year 2020, which is why the consequences of the pandemic have made themselves felt.

While Frankfurt's population had grown by 3.8 percent since 2016 and thus above average, this development came to a standstill in 2020.

The corona pandemic resulted in a negative migration balance of three people per 1000 inhabitants.

This trend was particularly strong in the southwest of the republic, with Stuttgart losing almost ten out of 1,000 inhabitants.

For Leipzig, on the other hand, the migration balance was positive at 7.8 per 1000 inhabitants.

The natural population balance remained positive in Frankfurt in 2020.

More births than deaths were registered.

Air traffic collapsed by 60 percent

The value was 3.3 per 1000 inhabitants.

Only in Munich was it higher at 3.6.

The numbers are within the range of fluctuation, said the head of the statistics department, Michael Wolfsteiner.

A pandemic effect cannot be read from the deaths.

The situation is different with the economic data.

For the first time since 2009, the number of employees subject to social security contributions in Frankfurt fell by 1.6 percent to 604,500 in the first Corona year 2020.

The employment density also fell by 1.7 points to 113.4 percent.

However, Frankfurt still offers more jobs for people between the ages of 15 and 64 than the city has residents of this age.

The 113.4 percent is the German peak value.

Bringing up the rear, Duisburg only has an employment density of 55.3 percent.

All major cities had to cope with a drop in tax revenues in 2020.

In Frankfurt, the slump was particularly large, from 3504 to 3047 euros per inhabitant.

This value also secures the city first place among the large cities, which averaged 1711 euros per inhabitant in 2020.

Munich, in second place, is already far behind the leader on the Main with 2369 euros.

Anyone looking for the causes of the current chaos at Frankfurt Airport will find at least one indication of the shock that 2020 has caused the industry in the statistics.

Air traffic at the Frankfurt hub collapsed by almost 60 percent.

Leipzig was far less affected with a decline of almost 20 percent.

"A lot of air freight is handled there," O'Sullivan said.

This also included the medical goods needed during the pandemic.

Construction activity remained high in 2020.

3371 apartments were completed in Frankfurt, almost 600 fewer than in 2019. The number is always subject to fluctuations.

However, another trend that started even before the pandemic struck continued.

The number of building permits for apartments in Frankfurt has almost halved since 2018 to 2816 in 2020.