Membership loss for DGB

The DGB German union confederation lost around 85,000 members in 2020.

Membership fell by 1.4% from 5,934,971 at the end of 2019 to 5,850,167 a year later, the largest fall since the financial crisis in 2009. Once again, external factors explain much of the decline.

The pandemic has meant that many part-time and agency jobs have been lost. At the same time, the shift to homeworking has made it more difficult to maintain contact with existing members and build links with possible new recruits.

Membership in the services union Ver.di, which organises in both the private and public sector, was broadly stable, dipping by only 0.7%. But membership in largely private sector unions saw larger falls, including in the largest, IG Metall. It lost 48,000 members — dropping to 2.2 million — a 2.1% fall.