The Bavarian craft sector is still doing good business despite the economic downturn, but the order backlog is becoming thinner. The Bavarian Craft Association (BHT) expects a price-adjusted decline in sales of two percent for the year as a whole. “Employment is also likely to decline slightly,” said the BHT in Munich on Wednesday.
Crafts President Franz Xaver Peteranderl said that 84 percent of the companies surveyed rated their business situation in the third quarter as good or satisfactory. Compared to the previous year, revenue between July and September is expected to have increased nominally by 5.7 percent to 39.3 billion euros. Adjusted for inflation, however, that is a minus of 1.3 percent. Operating utilization fell “by one point to a still satisfactory 80 percent.”
But the weak consumer climate, cautious investments by companies and the high level of uncertainty with regard to future energy costs caused the order backlog in the Bavarian trade sector to shrink further from an average of ten weeks to now 9.4 weeks. The companies surveyed were pessimistic about the final quarter: only eight percent expect their business situation to improve by the end of the year, 26 percent expect it to worsen.
According to BHT estimates, 965,000 people are still working in Bavarian crafts. Within a year, that is a minus of one percent. “By the end of September, the Chambers of Crafts in Bavaria had registered 24,580 new apprenticeship contracts. That corresponds almost exactly to the level of the previous year,” said Managing Director Frank Hüpers. Even after the start of the training year, contracts continue to be concluded: “There are still many open apprenticeships.” The willingness of Bavarian craft businesses to invest is pleasingly stable: 37 percent of those surveyed invested in their companies in the last quarter.
With regard to politics, Peteranderl criticized too much bureaucracy. Small companies in particular “urgently need more time in the workshop and in customer service instead of creating documentation or fulfilling reporting obligations,” he warned. A SME-friendly location policy would be a good start to create a spirit of optimism in the country. There are around 210,000 craft businesses in Bavaria.