Press release No. 418 of 7 November 2024
Production in industry
September 2024 (in real terms, provisional):
-2.5% on the previous month (seasonally and calendar adjusted)
-4.6% on the same month a year earlier (calendar adjusted)
August 2024 (in real terms, revised):
+2.6% on the previous month (seasonally and calendar adjusted)
-3.0% on the same month a year earlier (calendar adjusted)
WIESBADEN – Production in industry in real terms (price adjusted) was down 2.5% in September 2024 month on month after seasonal and calendar adjustment, according to provisional data provided by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). The less volatile three-month on three-month comparison showed that production was 1.9% lower in the period from July 2024 to September 2024 than in the previous three months. After revision of the provisional results, production increased by 2.6% in August 2024 compared with July 2024 (provisional figure: +2.9%). Compared with September 2023, production was 4.6% lower in September 2024 after adjustment for calendar effects.
Significant drop in production in the automotive industry
Many branches of industry showed a negative development of production. In September 2024, the seasonally and calendar adjusted production in the automotive industry, for example, declined by 7.8% compared with the previous month, following an increase of 15.4% in August 2024. The significant fluctuations observed in the automotive industry had a serious impact on the overall development of production in the past months. The production decline registered in the chemical industry (-4.3%) also weighed on overall performance in September 2024. By contrast, production in the manufacture of machinery and equipment (+1.7%) showed a positive development.
In September 2024, production in industry excluding energy and construction was down 2.7% from August 2024 after seasonal and calendar adjustment. Within industry, decreases were reported in all three major groups. The production of capital goods declined by 4.0%, the production of intermediate goods fell by 1.6% and the production of consumer goods was down 1.4%. Outside industry, energy production in September 2024 was down 2.1% and production in construction dropped by 1.4% compared with the previous month.
Compared with September 2023, production in industry excluding energy and construction in September 2024 was down 5.2% after calendar adjustment.
Production down in energy-intensive industrial branches
Production in energy-intensive industrial branches declined by 3.3% in September 2024 from August 2024, after elimination of seasonal and calendar effects, which is mainly due to a drop in production in the chemical industry. A three-month on three-month comparison showed that production in energy-intensive industrial branches was 2.2% lower in the period from July 2024 to September 2024 than in the previous three-month period. Adjusted for calendar effects, production in energy-intensive industrial branches was down 2.0% in September 2024 compared with September 2023. An analysis on the Production index for energy-intensive industrial branches (only in German) is available on the “Industry, manufacturing” page of the Federal Statistical Office’s website.
Methodological notes:
The differing comparative periods must be taken into account in all press releases on short-term indicators. Short-term economic monitoring focuses on comparisons of seasonally and calendar adjusted figures with those of the previous month or quarter. These reflect short-term economic trends. Year-on-year comparisons of calendar adjusted results enable long-term comparisons of levels and are not influenced by seasonal fluctuations or calendar effects. The results of month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year comparisons may differ considerably due to the Covid-19 crisis and the war in Ukraine.
The rates of change are based on the production index for industry. The average figure for 2021 is used as the basis of the index and set to 100 index points (2021 = 100). The X13 JDemetra+ method was used for calendar and seasonal adjustment.
The five branches referred to here as “energy-intensive” have particularly high energy demands in relation to their gross value added. In the reference year of 2021, they collectively accounted for 77% of total industrial energy consumption. Their proportion of industrial gross value added stood at 17%. In 2021, just under one million people (929,599) were employed in the 6,986 industrial establishments of these branches in Germany.
For better readability, this press release uses a short form for the names of some economic branches which differs from the designations in the “Classification of Economic Activities (2008 edition)”. An overview of these short forms (only in German) is provided on the “Industry, manufacturing" page on the website of the Federal Statistical Office.
More information:
Basic data and long time series on the production index in industry can be found in the table Indices of production in manufacturing (42153-0001) in the GENESIS-Online database. It contains the time series of the production index for energy-intensive industrial branches from 2005 onwards.
A dossier on the "Short-term indicators" page of the Federal Statistical Office's website provides an analysis of the relationship between material shortages, new orders, production and prices in industry. Detailed information on production in energy-intensive industrial branches is available on the "Industry, manufacturing" page.
The production index is also available on Dashboard Germany at www.dashboard-deutschland.de (only in German) In this data portal, the Federal Statistical Office brings together up-to-date indicators from official statistics producers and other data providers on the topics of the economy, finance, the labour market, construction, housing, energy and Ukraine. The portal also contains the Economic Pulse Monitor tool (Pulsmesser für die Wirtschaft) (only in German) for real-time economic monitoring.
Important information regarding the GENESIS-Online database:
After leaving the beta phase, our database's new user interface has been available as the main interface version since 5 November 2024. The new interface offers faster data retrieval and intuitive table search and customisation options. There have also been changes to the structure of the machine-readable flat file (CSV) format and the data output format for table downloads. For further details and other important information on the release, please see the info page of the new GENESIS-Online database.
