Which definition is the rate based on?

It is the value reported by the official statistics for that region. InfraNode does not recalculate anything and does not derive its own rate, which is why the reference year is always included.

Why does the INKAR unemployment indicator differ from the rate?

Because they are two figures with a different base and a different year: INKAR carries the share of unemployed among the civilian labour force for the most recent year available there, while the labour market endpoint carries the officially reported rate of its reference year. Both values carry their year so the difference stays explainable.

Which topics does the indicator set cover?

Labour market, economy, income, demography, housing, accessibility, transport, education, health and land use. Every indicator carries its category so a single topic can be filtered out.

Are the values updated daily?

No, both sources publish annually. The endpoint reads from a stored dataset, there is no upstream call in the request path, and the year is part of every response.

Labour market API for German cities

Name: Labour market and socioeconomic indicators per German city
Creator: InfraNode
License: https://www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0

Unemployment figures and the rate are usually just the entry point, followed by the question of how the city stands on income, housing or accessibility. This API returns both: the official labour market figures and more than 60 INKAR indicators of the BBSR, per city and without a key.

What data you get

One endpoint returns the number of unemployed, the unemployment rate in percent, the reference year and the official name of the region. A second endpoint returns the INKAR indicators of the BBSR: per indicator the label including its unit, the value, the year and the topic category, covering labour market, economy, income, demography, housing, accessibility, education and health. There are more than 60 indicators per city.

Unemployed persons
Unemployment rate in percent
Reference year
Official name of the region
Indicator label including unit
Indicator value
Year of the indicator
Topic category of the indicator

Source: German federal and state statistical offices (labour market) and Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), INKAR. License: DL-DE/BY 2.0. Source, license URL and timestamp are included in every API response in the meta and attribution block.

How to fetch it

A simple GET request, no key and no sign-up:

curl https://infranode.dev/api/v1/cities/koeln/unemployment

For another city, just put the slug from the cities list into the path.

No key, no sign-up, free.

Open quickstart Endpoint reference

Covered cities

All cities in the register. Both sources are published per district and district-free city: if a city is not a district of its own, the value applies to the surrounding district. Per INKAR indicator the most recent available yearly value is carried, unchanged from the source.

Available for all 84 covered cities. The exact per-city status is on the coverage and status page, the full list of cities on the cities overview.

Straight to the largest covered cities: Berlin , Hamburg , München , Köln , Frankfurt am Main , Stuttgart , Düsseldorf , Leipzig , Dortmund , Essen .

Endpoint reference

All parameters, fields and response examples are in the API reference for this endpoint. InfraNode is also available as an MCP server for AI assistants.

Frequently asked questions

Which definition is the rate based on?: It is the value reported by the official statistics for that region. InfraNode does not recalculate anything and does not derive its own rate, which is why the reference year is always included.
Why does the INKAR unemployment indicator differ from the rate?: Because they are two figures with a different base and a different year: INKAR carries the share of unemployed among the civilian labour force for the most recent year available there, while the labour market endpoint carries the officially reported rate of its reference year. Both values carry their year so the difference stays explainable.
Which topics does the indicator set cover?: Labour market, economy, income, demography, housing, accessibility, transport, education, health and land use. Every indicator carries its category so a single topic can be filtered out.
Are the values updated daily?: No, both sources publish annually. The endpoint reads from a stored dataset, there is no upstream call in the request path, and the year is part of every response.