Economic Assessments of Austrian Companies in the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Results of the WIFO-Konjunkturtest Quarterly Survey of January 2021

The economic assessments by Austrian companies in the last quarter were determined by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only in the construction industry were the economic indices in the January survey in positive territory. The WIFO-Konjunkturampel (economic traffic light) confirms this picture, showing yellow, indicating an interruption of the recovery process from summer and autumn. Accordingly, uncertainty remains high in all sectors. Capacity utilisation improved differently between sectors, but remained at low levels with the exception of the construction sector. Companies named "insufficient demand" as the most important obstacle to their activity, followed by "other obstacles".