Delivery bottlenecks and a shortage of parts cause problems for many manufacturers. This also affects the number of new orders. The comparison with the Corona crisis year 2020 gives some hope.
After a strong increase in orders in the previous months, August put a damper on German industry. In terms of incoming orders, the manufacturing sector recorded a decline of 7.7 percent compared to July 2021, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Wednesday.
The Wiesbaden authority explained the significant decline with the fact that, unlike in July and June of the current year, fewer major orders were received, for example for aircraft, ships or trains. “There were an above-average number of large orders for August, but fewer than in the previous months,” explained a statistician.
However: Even without taking into account the large-scale orders, which are prone to fluctuations, incoming orders fell by 5.1 percent in a month-on-month comparison. According to the information, orders in the automotive industry fell particularly sharply. Many manufacturers are experiencing delivery bottlenecks for important parts and raw materials: According to calculations by the Federal Office, orders for vehicles and vehicle parts fell by 12 percent in August, while metal production and processing saw a decline of 9.6 percent.
“The sharp decline in incoming orders shows that the shortage of materials is also slowing down incoming orders. If it is already clear that delivery cannot be made, many companies do not even order, ”said VP Bank’s chief economist, Thomas Gitzel. “The shortage of intermediate products is currently a very serious short-term economic risk.”
Compared to August 2020, which was particularly hard hit by the Corona crisis, orders in German industry in August of the current year were 11.7 percent higher.
After a recalculation, the values for July turned out to be even better than initially stated by the Federal Office: from June to July 2021 the order increase was 4.9 percent instead of 3.4 percent. Compared to July 2020, there was now an increase of 26.1 percent instead of 24.4 percent. The deviation from the provisional July result resulted from late reports of major orders in the areas of manufacturing metal products, mechanical engineering and other vehicle construction, explained the statisticians.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
