Strong regional disparities persist across Germany regarding the labor costs employers incur per working hour. According to data released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Thursday, the highest labor costs in the 2024 comparison year were found in Hamburg, at €49.41 per hour, followed closely by Hesse at €47.83. The national average across all federal states stands at €44.32 per hour. When analyzed regionally, the costs naturally fall into three groupings of similarly high expenditure.
The lowest regional labor costs remained in the eastern German states and Schleswig-Holstein. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, employers paid between €36.40 and €39.95 per hour in Schleswig-Holstein. A middle tier included the Saarland, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Rhineland-Palatinate, where costs ranged from €42.53 in Saarland up to €44.15 in Rhineland-Palatinate. The highest cost regions comprised Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, and the city-states; in these areas, the hourly rate ranged from €45.03 in Bremen to €49.41 in Hamburg.
Beyond regional differences, significant variations appear when comparing costs across different economic sectors. The lowest hourly expenses are found in catering (€25.73), accommodation (€26.68), and the field of “Building Maintenance; Gardening and Landscaping” (€27.34). Conversely, the hourly costs soar well above €70 in upper-tier industries. The most expensive sectors include passenger transport in aviation (€83.78), followed by tobacco processing (€75.82), coke and mineral oil processing (€74.40), and coal mining (€73.75).
Looking at the overall economic structure, the configuration of labor costs has remained nearly constant since 2008. In 2024, 75.9 percent of labor costs were attributed to the gross wages of employees, while social contributions paid by employers accounted for 22.6 percent. Expenditures on external and further education remained stable, contributing only 0.4 percent of total costs across the years.
Although costs to cover salary during illness are only a small proportion of overall labor expenses, the relative share of this cost has grown noticeably from 2.7 percent in 2008 to 3.6 percent in 2024. In absolute terms, these payments have more than doubled: in 2008, employers spent an average of €1,262 per full-time employee on sick pay, a figure that rose to €2,677 in 2024.
