Klaus F. Zimmermann is President of the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and Co–Director of POP (Center for Population, Development and Labour Economics) at UNU – MERIT, Maastricht. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Economics; Honorary Professor at the Free University of Berlin, Maastricht University, Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, and at the Renmin University of China, Beijing; Full Professor of Economics at Bonn University (em.); Member of the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences, and of the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Sciences; Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); and a Fellow of the European Economic Association; He was awarded the Distinguished John G. Diefenbaker Award 1998 of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Outstanding Contribution Award 2013 of the European Investment Bank (EIB Prize 2013).

His former positions, among many others, include Managing Editor of Economic Policy; Programme Director for "Human Resources" and "Labour Economics" of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin); and Chair of the Section for Economics, Business and Management Sciences of Academia Europaea.