2.2 million people in Germany are employed on fixed‑term contracts.
The Federal Statistical Office said the share of core workers aged 15-64 with fixed-term jobs fell to 6.0% in 2025 from 7.0% in 2015. The decline was similar for men and women: 5.7% of male core workers had fixed-term…
Source: Federal Statistical Office Germany · August 13, 2026 at 7:45 AM · AI-assisted report
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KUALA LUMPUR, 13 AUGUST 2026 —
The Federal Statistical Office said the share of core workers aged 15-64 with fixed-term jobs fell to 6.0% in 2025 from 7.0% in 2015. The decline was similar for men and women: 5.7% of male core workers had fixed-term contracts last year versus 6.2% of women.
Market Impact
The broader category of atypical employment—fixed-term, part-time under 20 hours, marginal or temporary agency work—also shrank. Atypical jobs totalled 6.4 million in 2025, or 17.2% of core workers, compared with 20.8% in 2015. Falls were steepest in short-hour part-time (down to 10.9% from 13.4%) and marginal work (down to 4.1% from 6.5%), while temporary agency work edged up to 2.0% from 1.8%.
Age was a strong predictor of fixed-term status. Nearly one in five core workers aged 15-25 (18.3%) were on fixed-term contracts last year, as were 10.2% of those aged 25-35. The share then dropped steadily: 5.6% for 35-45-year-olds, 3.8% for 45-55-year-olds and 2.8% for 55-65-year-olds.
Education levels mattered too. Among workers without vocational qualifications, 11.6% had fixed-term contracts in 2025, compared with 6.4% of those with high-level qualifications and 4.0% of those with mid-level qualifications.
Sectoral differences emerged. The education sector had the highest fixed-term share at 11.2%, followed by hospitality (8.8%) and arts, entertainment, household services (8.2%). The construction, finance and real-estate sectors reported the lowest shares, each at 2.5%.
Fixed-term contracts were usually short. More than half (52.4%) of core workers aged 25+ on such contracts had agreements lasting less than one year. Only 11.6% had contracts longer than three years.
About 31.4% of fixed-term workers aged 25+ said their job was posted as temporary, while 16.9% were in training. Probe contracts accounted for 12.9%, 8.2% cited inability to find a permanent role, and 2.7% chose fixed-term work deliberately. The remaining 28.0% gave other reasons.
The data come from the 2025 Mikrozensus and the EU Labour Force Survey, both integrated into Germany’s official labour-market statistics.