BERLIN (Reuters) - There were roughly 46.1 million people employed in Germany in 2024 on an annual average, the highest number since German reunification, the statistics office said on Thursday.

The average number of people in employment in 2024 rose by 72,000 on the previous year, the statistics office said.

With the exception of the pandemic year of 2020, the number of employed has risen consistently since 2006.

However, the pace of employment growth has slowed considerably since mid-2022, the office said.

The increase of 72,000 people employed in 2024 follows larger rises of 622,000 in 2022 and 336,000 in 2023, data from the statistics office showed.

As in previous years, employment growth in 2024 was due to the immigration of foreign workers and the higher labour force participation of the domestic population.

According to the statistics office, these two contributions offset the dampening effects of demographic change.

The service sector was the only contributor to the increase in the total number of people in employment in 2024, with 75.5% of all employed working in this sector.

In industry, the number of employed fell by 50,000 and the number of workers in construction industry fell by 28,000, data from the statistics office showed.