The Municipal Job Agency, Leipzig
Defying economic odds in post-reunification East Germany

What is special about this project?

This study illustrates the lengths to which the city council went to rebuild an economic base after the dramatic restructuring of the entire East German system. The city recognised that any sustainable approach to economic recovery must focus on the issues of 1) providing new employers with a suitable workforce and 2) channelling the unemployed into employment.

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Leipzig has been spectacularly successful in defying predictions of population and economic collapse through a determined drive to attract inward investors and link their population to the new opportunities.

Shopping centre
Leipzig has become
an economic
success story










Federal subsidies have played a big role in leveraging the recovery of Eastern Germany; however the City’s enormous efforts to attract big companies through co-operation, minimisation of bureacracy, and preparing the unemployed for work has made Leipzig an attractive place not just to work, but also to invest in.


What can be learned?

Leipzig has become known as one of the few ‘success stories’ in Eastern Germany. This has been attributed to factors such as its political leadership, the will to make tough decisions, the active participation of civil society, well-designed public services and a high quality of life. The following approaches were particularly effective:

• Courting large companies in order to rebuild an economic base and close the huge employment gap is helped by investment in regeneration

Urban regeneration
Investing in
the university











• Designing and implementing a long-term strategy about how to achieve urban recovery steered
the city through years when outsiders lost confidence

• Recognition of the need to offer a broad range of services in order to ‘win’ new companies

• Adopting an innovative approach to urban renewal greatly helped in restoring confidence in Leipzig as a place.
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Topics associated with this project

Employment,  Housing,  International,  Training