A native from Göppingen, Klaus F. Zimmermann obtained a graduate diploma, his PhD and his habilitation in economics from the University of Mannheim in 1978, 1985 and 1987, respectively. After teaching as research associate at the University of Mannheim from 1978 to 1984, Zimmermann became assistant professor in Mannheim, followed by positions as e.g. research fellow at the Catholic University of Louvain, as senior research fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and as Heisenberg Fellow at the German Research Foundation. In 1989, Zimmermann accepted a call for a position as Full Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Munich, before moving to the University of Bonn as Full Professor of Economics in 1998. In Bonn, Zimmermann became the founding director of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), a position which he held until 2016. Additionally, from 2000 to 2011, Zimmermann was also the president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, and has been an honorary of professor at the Free University of Berlin (since 2001) and the Renmin University of China (since 2006). In 2016, Zimmermann left IZA prior to a major restructuring and accepted an honorary professorship at Maastricht University. A year later, Zimmermann helped found and became the president of the Global Labor Organization, an international research and policy network on labour, demographics and human resources.

Throughout his career, Zimmermann has held positions as visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Princeton University, Simon Fraser University, Kyoto University, Dartmouth College, Humboldt University of Berlin, Tilburg University, Macquarie University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Dortmund. He is a member of – among else – the American Economic Association, European Economic Association, German Economic Association, Econometric Society, Academia Europaea, German Academy of Sciences at Berlin and Royal Economic Society.[3] He has performed or performs editorial duties for – among else – the Journal of Population Economics (which he founded in 1987), Economic Policy, European Economic Review, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Labour Economics, and the International Journal of Manpower.