In the second month of 2024, the seasonally and calendar-adjusted business climate in the German print and media industry came under renewed pressure after stagnating at the start of the year. While the business outlook for the next six months remained virtually unchanged compared to January, assessments of the current business situation plummeted. The business climate index calculated by the German Printing and Media Industries Federation was down around 4.1 per cent on the previous month, adjusted for seasonal and calendar effects. At 82.4 points, the index in January was around 12.9 per cent below the previous year’s level.
In February 2024, the decision-makers at printing and media companies surveyed by the ifo Institute assessed their current business situation as significantly worse than in the previous month. By contrast, the assessment of developments in the coming months remained virtually unchanged. The characteristics of the current and expected business situation determine the development of the business climate, which is a good leading indicator for production development in the print and media industry.
The seasonally and calendar-adjusted business situation index recorded a sharp decline of 7.9 percentage points to 77.0 points compared to the previous month, ending the weak positive trend in business development at the turn of the year. In relative terms, this is also the sharpest month-on-month decline since the peak of the coronavirus crisis in spring 2020. Compared to the previous year, the index is therefore around 22.0 per cent below the previous year’s level. In February, around 2 per cent of companies assessed their current business situation positively, while 52 per cent gave a neutral assessment. 46 per cent of companies gave a negative assessment. In a year-on-year comparison, the net values fell from -0.6 percentage points in February 2023 to -45 percentage points in February 2024. The main reason for this is the ongoing difficult order situation and the associated low capacity utilisation. Around 66 per cent of companies rated the current order backlog as “too low”. This corresponds to an increase of around 22 percentage points. In addition to the structural effects, the lack of an overall economic recovery and the ongoing cost pressure are also likely to prevent an improvement in the situation at present.
Business expectations remain almost unchanged compared to the previous month. At 88.1 points, the seasonally and calendar-adjusted index was around 0.2% below the previous month’s level and thus around 2.8% below the value from February 2023. Around 7% of companies stated that they expected their business situation to improve significantly in the next 6 months. Around 27 per cent of respondents expected their business situation to deteriorate in the next 6 months. At -20.4 percentage points, the balance was therefore around 5 percentage points below the expectations at the end of last year. At -23.5 percentage points, the balance for employment trends remained clearly negative, indicating that companies continue to expect a shrinking market and are reducing capacity.
BVDM
The Bundesverband Druck und Medien e. V. (bvdm) is the umbrella organisation of the German printing industry. As an employers’ organisation, political business association and technical trade association, it represents the positions and objectives of the printing industry vis-à-vis politicians, administration, trade unions and the supplier industry. The bvdm is supported by eight regional associations. Internationally, it is organised through its membership of Intergraf and FESPA. The printing industry currently comprises around 6,900 predominantly small and medium-sized companies with more than 110,000 employees subject to social security contributions.
