OREANDA-NEWS. July 22, 2013. Despite the difficult economic conditions, Munich Airport has continued to live up to its name as a job machine over the past three years.

As the new study "Munich Airport: the Workplace" clearly demonstrates, the number of employees at the airport has increased by nearly 2,800 since the end of 2009 to 32,250 today. Statistically speaking, this means that Munich Airport generates 2.5 new jobs per day.

Every three years Munich Airport releases its latest workplace survey, summing up key figures on employment trends at the airport. The latest study, which is now available, takes December 31, 2012 as the reporting date, and is based on data provided by 552 companies and public-sector employers operating at the airport. Since the first survey in 1994, which reported a total of 15,400 airport employees, the workforce has more than doubled. The biggest employers at Munich Airport are the Lufthansa Group, with 10,800 employees, and FMG, which, with its subsidiaries, employs a total of 8,200 people.

Outpacing even this rapid growth in employment is the rate of increase in training opportunities at the airport. Compared with 1994, the number of apprenticeships and similar positions at the airport has nearly tripled, from 233 to 695, and are now being prepared for 39 different occupations. "This shows that Munich Airport not only plays a key role as a workplace, but also as a training location for the entire regional economy" said Dr. Michael Kerkloh, CEO of Munich Airport, at the presentation of the new study at the Munich Press Club.

In terms of place of residence of airport employees, the biggest increase was seen in the Bavarian state capital of Munich. Approximately 6,800 airport employees live in Munich: an increase of 1,000 people, or 17 percent, as compared with 2009. Above-average gains were also seen in the city and district of Freising, which is now home to 7,050 airport employees – an increase of 930 (15 percent). With a total of 22 percent of the entire airport workforce, Freising provides the largest share of Munich Airport's personnel. In the city and district of Erding, 5,160 airport employees were counted: 8 percent more than in 2009. These figures show that one out of every four persons from Freising and Erding in regular employment has a job at Munich Airport.

The new study also emphatically reaffirms not only the quantity of jobs at the airport, but also the quality of employment there. More than 90 percent of those working at the airport are in socially insured positions – as compared with an average of only about 70 percent on a state-wide and nation-wide basis. According to the new study, the average gross annual income of airport employees has increased by nearly 16 percent to approximately 43,000 euros, and is thus 10,000 euros higher than the average growth income reported by the German Federal Statistics Office for the entire services sector in 2012. Airport CEO Kerkloh remarked, "These figures underscore the absurdity of the constant claims of airport critics that the airport only generates low-end jobs."

Munich Airport's performance as an important employment engine can be expected to continue in the coming years. More than two thirds of the companies surveyed said that they expect to have more staff by the end of 2013. FMG alone, with its subsidiaries, will hire about 2,500 new employees over the next five years – about half of them to fill new positions, and the other half to replace departing employees.