The self-employed in Germany are increasingly caught up in the economic downturn. Your barometer for the business climate fell in June by 4.0 to minus 12.6 points, as the Munich Ifo Institute announced on Tuesday in its monthly survey. “It’s a kind of domino effect,” said Ifo expert Katrin Demmelhuber. “Since many large companies lack orders, they also award fewer orders to the self-employed.” Concerns about further business development therefore increased again significantly. The self-employed were also dissatisfied with their current business.
“In the overall economy, the indicators are also pointing downwards, but the business situation here is still considered favorable overall,” said the Ifo Institute. In the case of service providers – on whom the focus of the survey among the self-employed and micro-enterprises with fewer than nine employees lies – expectations fell noticeably. The current situation was also assessed less positively. Sales fell and orders on hand continued to shrink. Company-related service providers such as IT or management consultancies felt the lack of orders from industry.
“Many private households are also reluctant to place orders due to continued high inflation,” said Demmelhuber. In retail, the business climate has clouded over considerably. “The industry assessed the current situation in particular as significantly worse, but companies are also more pessimistic about the future than in the previous month,” the Munich researchers explained. The mood in the executive offices of small and medium-sized companies also plummeted in June.
The business climate barometer fell by 5.4 to minus 11.8 points, as the state development bank KfW recently announced. “The short-term economic optimism from the spring has evaporated,” commented KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib on the development. “Instead, the German economy is in a kind of limbo.”