Around 50,000 jobs have been eliminated in the inpatient clothing, shoe and leather goods trade in the past five years. According to current calculations by the BTE, the number of employees fell by 13.1 % to only 330,246 people between the end of 2019 and at the end of 2024. For comparison: In 2019, 380,036 people were still active in the industry (including minor employees).
The clothing trade was particularly hard: Here the number of employees reduced from 312,247 to 276,669 – a minus of 11.3 %. The decline for social security employees was 12.5 %, full -time positions even collapsed by 20.8 %.
The minus in the shoe trade was even clearer. Since 2019, employment there has been shrinking by 21.4 % to 48,047 people. In leather goods retailers, the number of employees fell by 17 % to 5,530.
According to BTE, the main cause of the decline in employment is the falling number of inpatient companies. If there were almost 20,000 companies in the outfit industry in 2019, in 2023 it was only 16.110 – a decline of 18.1 %. The most affected: shoe and leather goods trade with -20.6 % or -22.4 %.
Number of employees in inpatient clothing, shoe and leather goods trade
Department of December 31, 2019 31.12.2024 Change rate
Retail of clothing 312,247 276,669 – 11.3%
Retail with shoes 61.129 48,047 – 21.4%
Retail with leather goods 6,660 5,530 – 17.0%
Total 380.036 330.246 – 13.1%
