Slight Declines in Economic Assessments

Even though many questionnaires had already been answered at the beginning of November, declines can be seen above all in expectations in the service sectors, especially gastronomy and tourism. The economy is likely to develop less dynamically in the coming months as a result of COVID-19 restriction measures and supply bottlenecks.

The index of current assessments for the overall economy declined by 1.4 points in November (seasonally adjusted) but remained in positive territory at 19.4 points. In retail trade, the situation index deteriorated (–1.2 points) and remained in negative territory at –2.9 points. The situation indices also lost momentum in the manufacturing sector (–3.3 points) and the services sectors (–0.8 points) but remained well above the zero line in both sectors (manufacturing 20.3 points, services 20.6 points). Only in the construction industry did the situation index improve (+1.3 points) and was at an above-average level of 33.1 points.

The index of business expectations lost 1.2 points in November after seasonal adjustment but remained optimistic at 16.6 points. However non-seasonally adjusted data show a more pronounced decline. This leads to interpretational uncertainties in the wake of the rising COVID-19 infection numbers, even though the non-seasonally adjusted declines are systematic over the years and thus have little cyclical information. Seasonally adjusted, the service sectors see a decline (–3.8 points to 14.3 points), which is particularly marked in tourism and gastronomy. In retailing, the expectations index remained almost unchanged and was negative at –5.7 points. In the construction industry, too, the expectations index remained almost unchanged and, at 39.3 points, continued to be in the optimistic range. In the manufacturing sector, the seasonally adjusted expectations index rose by 2.5 points to 20.4 points.