Weekly WIFO Economic Index

WWWI for GDP and its subcomponents

Based on the weekly GDP indicator (WWWI), domestic economic output was ½ percent lower in March (calendar weeks 10 to 13) than in the previous year (February –1 percent, revised)¹.

The inflation-adjusted volume of non-cash transactions, as an indicator of household consumption expenditure, shows a slight year-on-year increase in demand for goods (retail sales) in March. Demand for services is likely to have fallen compared with a year earlier. As a result, in March – as in February – private consumption is estimated to have been 1 percent lower than in the same period of the previous year.

The development of gross fixed capital formation is determined by economic output (industrial production) and sentiment in the manufacturing sector, as measured by the WIFO-Konjunkturtest (business cycle survey). In March, investments are expected to have been ½ percent lower than in the previous year (February –1 percent).

Developments in industrial production and tourism, as well as in the main components of demand and the resulting effects on external trade, resulted in a negative contribution of net exports to GDP growth of ¾ percentage points in March (February –1 percentage point).

The number of trucks on Austria's motorways, rail freight traffic and the number of passenger flights handled at Vienna Airport increased in March compared to the previous year. In contrast, the volume of freight handled at Vienna Airport declined and, according to the WIFO-Konjunkturtest, the assessment of the current business situation remained negative in March among the majority of companies in the transport sector, despite a tendency towards improvement. Based on these indicators, value added in the transport sector (NACE 2008, section H) is expected to have increased slightly by ¼ percent in March compared to the previous year (February +¼ percent).

Employment in the goods-producing sector (NACE 2008, sections A to E) continued to fall due to the recession, and the number of job seekers has been rising at double-digit rates year-on-year since November 2023. Although the WIFO-Konjunkturtest shows a slight improvement in both the assessment of the current situation and the expectations for the coming months, sentiment remains well in negative territory. WIFO expects economic output in the goods-producing sector to have been 2½ percent lower in March than in February (–3¾ percent)².

Sentiment indicators for the construction sector remain gloomy. The rise in the number of persons registered as unemployed in the construction sector, which has been going on for more than two years, seems to have been reversed since the turn of the year 2024-25 and continued until March, with the exception of February. Employment continued to decline. Value added in construction (NACE 2008, section F) is estimated to have been 1½ percent lower in March than in the same period of the previous year (February –3¾ percent).

Based on cashless transactions in the restaurant and hotel sector, sentiment indicators from the WIFO-Konjunkturtest and online searches by foreign guests, value added in tourism (accommodation and food services, NACE 2008, section I) is estimated to have been 9¾ percent lower in March than in the same period of the previous year. The significant decline is due to the calendar position of Easter week: in 2024, Easter fell in calendar week 13 and thus in March, while this year it falls in calendar week 16 and thus in April. Value added in the wholesale and retail trade sector (NACE 2008, section G) is estimated to have fallen by ¾ percent in March compared to the previous year (February –2 percent).

The current employment situation in the remaining market services and sentiment indicators from the WIFO-Konjunkturtest point to a slight improvement in this sector, and the dampening effect from manufacturing is also likely to have eased somewhat. In the remaining market services (NACE 2008, sections J to N), value added is estimated to have increased by 1 percent year-on-year in March (February +½ percent). In other personal services (NACE 2008, sections R to T) value added based on price-adjusted non-cash payments in the entertainment sector is estimated to have been 3 percent lower in March than a year earlier (February –½ percent).

¹ The inclusion of newly published monthly and quarterly data, which must be taken into account when estimating the WWWI, led to a revision of the WWWI. For February, notable downward revisions on the production side occurred in particular in accommodation and food services (NACE 2008, section I), trade (section G) and remaining market-related services (sections J to N). Larger upward revisions had to be made for the goods-producing sector (sections A to E).

² The WWWI estimates are modelled using unadjusted weekly and monthly data compared to the previous year. The calculations are therefore affected by one working day less in February and ½ working day more in March than in the previous year, particularly in the goods producing sector and the closely related market services and construction.

The WIFO Weekly Economic Index (WWWI) is a measure of the real economic activity of the Austrian economy on a weekly and monthly frequency. It is based on weekly, monthly and quarterly time series to estimate weekly and monthly indicators for real GDP and 18 GDP sub-aggregates (use side 8, production side 10) of the Quarterly National Accounts.

With the release for June 2022, the econometric models for the historical decompositions and for nowcasting have been converted to seasonally unadjusted time series. In addition, year-on-year growth rates are now used to estimate the models.

The WWWI estimates are (currently) updated monthly and published on the WIFO website.