The analysis presented in this article is focussed on unemployment in the FRG. The author has presented the scale and dynamics of unemployment in the eighties and its basic structural characteristics. He advances a thesis that althougt unemployment in the FRG has its sources in business cycles it assumes features of structural unemployment. Next, the author discusses measures taken by the economic administration in relation to the labour market. The article ends with presentation of propositions advanced by some West German experts in relation to the sector of services, which should be paving the way for more rapid expansion of this sector and, thus, for alleviation of tensions in the labour market.