Record employment
As of 30 June 2017, the Federal Employment Agency registered a record 173,531 employees liable to social insurance contributions in Bonn. The figure marks a 2.2% rise in employment since June 2016, which in absolute terms means 3,691 more people in socially insured work. By comparison, employment across NRW increased by around 2.3% over the same period and the figure for the Rhein-Sieg District around Bonn showed a rise of 2.5%. Owing to the vigorous long-term growth of employment, the number of persons with socially insured jobs in Bonn today is 39,332 (29.3%) more than the 134,199 recorded in 1991 when parliament passed the resolution to transfer the German capital from Bonn to Berlin.
High percentage of academics
The Federal Employment Agency has adapted its definition of "academic degree" to take account of the new educational options that have been introduced. As of 30 June 2017, 28.5% of the working population (49,540 persons in absolute terms) held one or more of the following academic qualifications: Bachelor, Diploma, Magister, Master, Staatsexamen, PhD. Across NRW, the average was 14.5%, compared with 15.6% nationwide and 12.6% in the Rhein-Sieg District. In the regional rankings, Bonn holds seventh place (also seventh in 2016) among the 400-plus municipalities in Germany and is the outright leader in NRW.
Population up by 3,365
According to extrapolated census figures, the official population of Bonn totalled 325,490 at the end of 2017. This was 3,365 (1.0%) more than the year-end figure of 322,125 in 2016. As in the past, the population growth stemmed partly from positive net migration, which brought the city a total of 2,781 more residents in 2017. Natural population change, i.e. the balance of births and deaths, has been consistently positive since 1987 and boosted the population by 393 in 2017. Aside from net migration and the balance of births and deaths, the state statistical office IT.NRW noted an increase of 191 persons in 2017 due to other changes, most of them the result of post‑hoc corrections.
High take-up in the office market
The Office for Economic Development registered a total of 143 take-up transactions in the Bonn office market in 2017. They included 142 lettings and one owner-occupier office development.
The volume of space taken up in the Bonn office market totalled 108,210 sq m in 2017. This followed a record figure of 126,200 sq m in 2016. Compared to developments in recent years, take-up was moderately recessive in 2017 but still significantly higher than the annual average of 93,500 sq m over the period 2013 – 2017. Unoccupied office premises accounted for 2.62% of the total stock registered at year-end 2017. With the aggregate floor space of office premises in Bonn totalling around 3.86 million sq m, this amounts to 100,989 sq m. Against the previous year, the vacancy rate edged up by 0.45 percentage points. Nevertheless, the annual level of vacancy – even compared with other cities – still points to undiminished strong demand for office properties in Bonn.
Relatively low unemployment
In relation to North Rhine-Westphalia as a whole, Bonn enjoys relatively low unemployment. In 2017, the unemployment rate in the city averaged
6.7%, compared to 5.2% in the surrounding Rhein-Sieg District, 7.4% across NRW and 5.7% nationwide. Unemployment decreased by 0.4 percentage points in Bonn during the course of 2017 and shrank by a moderate 0.3 percentage points in the Rhein-Sieg District while the national figure fell by 0.4 percentage points and state-wide unemployment eased by 0.3 percentage points. In a comparison of average annual unemployment in 20 major German cities, Bonn ranked seventh in 2017. Munich (4.2%), Stuttgart (4.7%), Münster (5.4%), Frankfurt am Main (5.9%), Nuremberg (6.0%) and Dresden (6.6%) scored better. Other NRW cities such as Düsseldorf (7.4%), Cologne (8.4%) and Duisburg (12.5%) had significantly higher levels of unemployment.