Business: More orders, more sales: Construction industry is adding in July

The troubled German construction industry did better business again at the start of the second half of the year. In July, the order intake in the main building industry grew by 1.9 percent to the previous month, as the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced. Measured last year, it went up 8.7 percent. The order intake in building construction, which depends largely on housing construction, increased by almost 11 percent, while in civil engineering, which includes road and bridge construction, there was an increase of 6.7 percent.

At the same time, the construction industry with its more than 900,000 employees recorded increasing sales. In July, the proceeds were 1.4 percent higher than in the same month, while employment increased somewhat. Viewed over the first seven months of the year, sales grew by 2.1 percent compared to the same period last year.

Industry sees positive signals in housing construction

“Fortunately, we see a stabilization of the housing orders in the course of the year,” said Felix Pakleppa, general manager of the Central Association of German Construction Trade (ZDB). However, the economy on the construction remains mixed overall. The situation in road construction is critical and the signals in business construction are mixed.

The construction industry has had difficult years. Since the Ukraine War rose both the prices for materials and interest rates, the housing construction in particular collapsed. Many people could no longer afford their own four walls. Now the construction industry with sunken key interest rates and the federal billions of the federal government hopes for infrastructure on a tailwind. According to the most recent IFO index for September, the mood at the building has brightened up.