Working in Münster
The chances of finding a job in Münster are good: the unemployment rate is only five percent (for comparison: in NRW - as of January 2020 - it is 6.8 percent overall). Münster as a business location also attracts many people from the surrounding area. Among the almost 170,000 employees subject to social insurance contributions, there are more than 100,000 commuters; conversely, only about 43,000 people, and thus about one fifth, commute from Münster to work in the surrounding area. This is why Münster has the lowest commuter rate in the whole of NRW.
Münster is also a stronghold in the service sector. 86.8 percent of jobs subject to social insurance contributions are in this sector, 12.8 percent in manufacturing and 0.4 percent in agriculture and forestry.
The finance and insurance sector is relatively well represented with 6.8 per cent of all jobs. Among others, NRW-Bank, LVM-Versicherung, PSD-Bank Westfalen-Lippe and Provinzial-NordWest-Versicherungsgruppe have their headquarters in Münster, as well as Sparkasse Münsterland-Ost and Vereinigte Volksbank Münster. 8.5 per cent of employees subject to social insurance contributions work in public administration in Münster, for example at the city administration, the district government and the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. 13 percent of employees work in the health sector, for example in the nine hospitals (including the university hospital), 35 outpatient care facilities and 43 nursing homes.
The nine universities with their total of 65,000 students are also important employers. In addition, completely new research centres and cooperations have emerged from the collaboration between the university, the city and industry, for example the Center for Nanotechnology Münster (CeNTech) and the Nano-Bioanalytics Centre Münster (NBZ). In the "Digital Hub münsterLAND" competence centre, science, companies, start-ups and other institutions network to jointly advance digital innovations and develop new business models. At the end of June 2019, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) announced that Münster had been selected as the location for the planned "Battery Cell Research Production". The application was launched under the leadership of the MEET Battery Research Centre at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU). The state and federal government are thus investing around 700 million euros in NRW.
Among the small and medium-sized industrial enterprises in Münster are some well-known companies, for example the paint and varnish manufacturer Brillux GmbH & Co KG, the agricultural trader Agravis Raiffeisen AG, BASF Coatings GmbH (paint division of the BASF Group), the liquefied gas supplier and petrol station operator Westfalen AG and Hengst SE, a globally positioned developer and manufacturer of technologically leading filtration solutions.
You can find an overview of job portals, job vacancies, career advice and training, for example, on the website of the city of Münster.
