Refugee Influx Helps Halt Decline In Germany's Population

Germany’s population is no longer shrinking. Four consecutive years of increasingly high net migration have outpaced the country’s birth deficit, taking the country’s population to nearly 82 million people – a level last seen in 2009.
The population growth has been particularly concentrated among those of working age. The number of people employed in Germany hit 43 million in 2015, according to data released by Destatis, the German statistics office, on Tuesday.

The figure represents the highest number of people in work since German reunification. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed people has dropped below 2 million for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Over the past 12 months the active labour force (the total number of people in employment and unemployed) has increased to 44.9 million, driven by higher labour force participation of the domestic population and the immigration of foreign workers, which has offset negative demographic effects.

Net migration has exceeded 300,000 every year since 2011, hitting 676,730 in 2014, according to data published by Germany’s federal office for migration and refugees.

By contrast, in 2014 for example, 714,927 births and 868,373 deaths were recorded.

The most recent estimate, released in April last year, puts the country’s population at 81.3 million, compared with 80.2 million in 2011.