Institute for Employment Research (IAB)

About us

The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) conducts research on the labour market in order to advise political actors at all levels in a competent manner. Economists, sociologists and researchers from other social science and methodological disciplines create the base for empirically well-informed labour market policy by way of excellently linked research, both nationally and internationally.

In this way we contribute, within the framework of our statutory mandate, to a better understanding of the way the labour market functions and of employment chances and living situations in a dynamically changing world. Freedom of research and publication guarantee that independent, and with that also critical, advice can be given.

Our Institute was set up in 1967 as a research unit of the former Federal Employment Service (Bundesanstalt für Arbeit) and has been a special office of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit/BA) since 2004. IAB is based in Nuremberg. Along with this, we are present nationwide at ten locations by way of our Regional Research Network.

Our researchers

• analyse the causes and structures of overall developments on the labour market from a macroeconomic perspective
• take into account the international and regional dimensions of changes in the labour markets
• study the effectivity of labour market policy
• concern themselves with the observation, measurement and explanation of the in- demand for labour by establishments, and examine the structuring of the labour market according to occupations
• investigate the connections between education and employment
• examine the living conditions, chances of participation and labour market perspectives of persons receiving basic income support.

A large part of our findings is based on our own comprehensive surveys along with process data from the Federal Employment Agency. IAB is a leader in developing new methods of surveying, linking and processing data. External researchers as well have access to quality-assured sets of innovative micro data that have been prepared for scientific analysis through the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the Federal Employment Agency at IAB.

IAB's organizational chart provides an overview of how the Institute is structured and introduces all departments, along with their staff. We describe what topics the departments are working on and give you information on individual projects.