Press release No.310 / 2009-08-25

Detailed results on the economic performance in the 2nd quarter of 2009

WIESBADEN – As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) already in its first release on 13 August 2009, the gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2009 was 0.3% higher than in the first three months of the year, upon adjustment for price, seasonal and calendar effects. Hence the German economy grew slightly for the first time again, following four quarter-on-quarter decreases in a row.

Gross domestic product, price-adjusted, chain-linked
(figures adjusted for seasonal and calendar effects using Census X-12-ARIMA)
Changes on a quarter earlier:

2007		2008				2009
3rd quarter	4th quarter	1st quarter	2nd quarter	3rd quarter	4th quarter	1st quarter	2nd quarter
0.8%	0.1%	1.6%	–0.6%	–0.3%	–2.4%	–3.5%	0.3%

Economic growth in the second quarter of 2009 was supported by household and government final consumption expenditure which rose by 0.7% and 0.4%, respectively, on the first quarter. Growth was also based on capital formation in construction, which was up 1.4%. It must be taken into account, however, that the construction activity in the first quarter was impaired by the relatively cold winter. Following a sharp fall in the first quarter of 2009 (–18.5% on the fourth quarter of 2008), capital formation in machinery and equipment did not change much (–0.5%), thus stabilising at a low level. Economic growth was slowed down by a massive reduction of inventories (contribution to growth: –1.9 percentage points). Between April and June 2009, both exports and imports were lower than in the first quarter. As, however, the decrease in price-adjusted imports (–5.1%) was considerably larger than that of exports (–1.2%), the resulting export surplus (balance of exports and imports) contributed 1.6 percentage points to GDP growth.

The following information refers to the year-on-year comparison:

In contrast to the quarter-on-quarter comparison, the price-adjusted GDP was markedly down on a year earlier: In the second quarter of 2009, it was by 7.1% smaller than in the same quarter of the previous year. That was the largest year-on-year decrease since quarterly GDP data were first produced in 1970. When calendar-adjusted, the GDP went down 5.9% as the number of working days available in the reference quarter was by three days smaller than in the second quarter of 2008.

Gross domestic product, price-adjusted, chain-linked (unadjusted figures)
Changes on a year earlier:

2007		2008				2009
3rd quarter	4th quarter	1st quarter	2nd quarter	3rd quarter	4th quarter	1st quarter	2nd quarter
2.4%	1.5%	2.1%	3.4%	1.4%	–1.7%	–6.4%	–7.1%

The economic performance in the second quarter of 2009 was achieved by about 40.2 million persons in employment, which was a decrease by 25,000 persons or 0.1% on a year earlier.

Overall labour productivity (price-adjusted gross domestic product per person in employment) decreased by 7.1% in the second quarter of 2009. The marked decrease is due to the fact that the difficult economic situation in Germany in the reference quarter had only a limited effect on the number of persons in employment because especially short-time work was considerably extended. The decrease of overall labour productivity per hour worked by persons in employment (–2.4%) was smaller than that of labour productivity per person in employment. Reasons are not only the wider utilisation of cyclical short-time work and a working day effect – the number of working days available from April to June 2009 was by three days smaller than in the same period of the previous year – but also the reduction of overtime and of working time accounts.

Except for other service activities, the performance of the various economic sectors in the second quarter of 2009 was in part markedly lower than in the same period a year earlier. A serious slump was recorded particularly for industry (including energy), whose price-adjusted gross value added was by 23.6% lower than in the second quarter of 2008. Gross value added in construction was down by 2.9%. The economic performance in trade, transport and communications decreased by 6.9% on a year earlier and that in financial, real estate, renting and business activities by 1.8%. Gross value added in agriculture, hunting and forestry; fishing decreased slightly (–0.8%), while other service activities were the only sector achieving a slight growth (+0.3%). Price-adjusted gross value added of all economic sectors fell by 8.0% on the second quarter of 2008. It must be taken into account here that those figures include the working day effect mentioned earlier.

On the use side of the gross domestic product, both domestic uses and the balance of exports and imports had a slowdown effect on economic growth. Domestic uses, which consist of final consumption expenditure and gross capital formation (including changes in inventories), were by 2.5% lower than in the same period of the previous year. That decrease is due to the trend of gross capital formation, which was by 16.0% below the value of the relevant period of a year earlier. A massive slump was recorded for real capital formation in machinery and equipment. The enterprises reduced their capital formation in machinery, equipment and vehicles by 23.4% compared with the second quarter of 2008. Capital formation in construction decreased by just 2.9% in a difficult short-term economic situation. The decrease in capital formation in the construction of dwellings (–3.4%) was somewhat larger than that in capital formation in other buildings and structures, which was by 2.2% below the relevant value of a year earlier. A strong reduction of inventories had a negative impact, too (negative contribution to growth: –0.9 percentage points). In contrast to gross capital formation, final consumption expenditure made a positive contribution to economic growth (+0.9%). Government final consumption expenditure rose 2.3% and final consumption expenditure of households by 0.5% on the second quarter of 2008. The positive trend of the (price-adjusted) final consumption expenditure of households is mainly due to an increase in motor vehicle purchases by households as a result of the so-called scrapping premium. The price-adjusted expenditure on transport and communications – private purchases of motor vehicles are allocated to that purpose – was up by 6.0% on the same period a year earlier. Except for an increase in the fourth quarter of 2006, which was induced by the turnover tax rise, that was the largest increase since the fourth quarter of 2004. Expenditure on food, beverages and tobacco was slightly up (+1.3%), as was expenditure on other purposes (+0.9%), which includes, for example, expenditure on health and personal care. Real expenditure on all other purposes decreased. Households spent markedly less than a year earlier especially on restaurants and hotels (–3.5%).

The global economic crisis resulted in a massive slump of foreign demand for German goods and services also in the second quarter of 2009 so that German exports were by 20.5% lower than a year earlier. So the decrease was even somewhat larger than in the first three months of this year when exports were down 17.2% in a year-on-year comparison. Imports, too, recorded a downward trend. However, it was less marked (–12.5%) than the negative trend of exports so that – in contrast to the quarter-on-quarter comparison – the balance of exports and imports had a considerable downward effect on economic growth (contribution to growth: –4.8 percentage points).

At current prices, the gross domestic product was down by 5.9% and the gross national income by 5.5% in the second quarter of 2009 as compared to the same quarter of the previous year. The net national income (factor costs), which consists of compensation of employees and property and entrepreneurial income, shrank by 7.4%. Compensation of employees remained nearly unchanged (–0.1%), whereas property and entrepreneurial income fell by 20.7% on the second quarter of 2008. The disposable income of households changed just slightly (–0.1%). With a slight increase (+0.2%) of the nominal final consumption expenditure, the savings ratio of households was calculated at 10.5%, which was 0.2 percentage points less than in the second quarter of 2008.

In addition to the first calculation of data for the second quarter of 2009, the results published so far for the last four years (from 2005) were revised, as is the case every year in August. Such continuous revisions are performed on a routine basis to include in the calculations new statistical data that have become available.

Regular revision of the results is in the nature of the calculation methods applied in national accounting: To allow early publication of up-to-date figures, the results at first are based on an incomplete data basis and part of them are estimated using short-term indicators. Such first provisional results are revised in subsequent regular calculations and are successively put on an ever better founded data basis in statistical terms. National accounting data are considered “final” – except for large-scale concept-related revisions – after about four years, when nearly all basic statistics required have become available, although the most important changes are integrated much earlier.

The recalculations performed in August 2009 resulted in rates of change of the annual and quarterly GDP (unadjusted figures) which differ from the previously published results by up to 0.3 percentage points.

The above and other national accounts data may be accessed via the internet. In addition, more detailed results are published in Fachserie 18 “Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen”, Reihe 1.2 “Vierteljahresergebnisse“ and Reihe 1.3 “Saisonbereinigte Vierteljahresergebnisse nach Census X-12-ARIMA und BV4.1“ . Those publications are available for free download from the Publications of the Federal Statistical Office. Reihe 1.2 is also available in an English-language version. A detailed quality report on national accounts is available here.

A long time series with quarterly results on the gross domestic product since the first quarter of 1970 is available at the Internet.

>>> brief methodological description

Gross domestic product
Price-adjusted, chain-linked
		Unadjusted figures		Figures according to Census X-12-ARIMA
		Unadjusted figures		Seasonally and calendar adjusted		Calendar adjusted		Calendar effect
¹⁾ Change on the same quarter of the preceding year in %. ²⁾ Change on the previous quarter in %.
		2000 = 100	% ¹⁾	2000 = 100	% ²⁾	2000 = 100	% ¹⁾	% ¹⁾
2005	1st quarter	99.48	–0.8	101.98	0.1	100.08	0.1	–0.9
	2nd quarter	103.32	1.4	102.57	0.6	102.29	0.5	0.9
	3rd quarter	104.57	1.3	103.28	0.7	104.47	1.4	–0.1
	4th quarter	104.66	1.0	103.50	0.2	104.49	1.6	–0.5
2006	1st quarter	103.19	3.7	104.38	0.9	102.50	2.4	1.3
	2nd quarter	105.30	1.9	105.92	1.5	105.61	3.2	–1.3
	3rd quarter	107.71	3.0	106.89	0.9	108.09	3.5	–0.4
	4th quarter	108.86	4.0	107.96	1.0	108.95	4.3	–0.2
2007	1st quarter	106.81	3.5	108.31	0.3	106.41	3.8	–0.3
	2nd quarter	107.97	2.5	108.66	0.3	108.34	2.6	–0.0
	3rd quarter	110.32	2.4	109.53	0.8	110.76	2.5	–0.0
	4th quarter	110.45	1.5	109.68	0.1	110.67	1.6	–0.1
2008	1st quarter	109.00	2.1	111.42	1.6	109.54	2.9	–0.9
	2nd quarter	111.61	3.4	110.79	–0.6	110.48	2.0	1.4
	3rd quarter	111.83	1.4	110.44	–0.3	111.67	0.8	0.5
	4th quarter	108.58	–1.7	107.74	–2.4	108.71	–1.8	0.1
2009	1st quarter	102.01	–6.4	103.93	–3.5	102.22	–6.7	0.3
2009	2nd quarter	103.66	–7.1	104.26	0.3	103.97	–5.9	–1.3

Gross domestic product, gross national income and
net national income (factor costs)
Seasonally and calendar adjusted with Census X-12-ARIMA
	2008				2009
	1st quarter	2nd quarter	3rd quarter	4th quarter	1st quarter	2nd quarter
¹⁾ Only seasonally adjusted.
Change on the previous quarter in %
Use of the gross domestic product
At current prices
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	0.9	–0.0	1.0	–0.8	–0.2	0.9
Government final consumption expenditure	1.5	1.4	0.1	0.8	2.5	0.8
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	3.1	–2.0	0.9	–2.1	–8.1	0.5
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	–0.3	–0.9	1.3	–4.2	–18.8	–0.7
GFCF in construction	6.7	–3.2	0.5	–0.8	0.3	1.2
D o m e s t i c u s e s	3.2	–0.5	1.6	–1.2	–0.9	–0.9
Exports	2.3	0.4	0.3	–8.8	–12.4	–1.7
Imports	4.9	–0.5	3.9	–8.3	–7.5	–5.6
G r o s s d o m e s t i c p r o d u c t (GDP)	2.1	–0.1	0.1	–1.9	–3.4	0.6
Price-adjusted, chain-linked
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	0.4	–0.6	0.3	–0.4	0.6	0.7
Government final consumption expenditure	1.0	0.7	0.1	0.6	1.1	0.4
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	2.4	–2.4	0.6	–2.0	–7.7	0.8
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	–0.6	–0.8	1.5	–3.7	–18.5	–0.5
GFCF in construction	5.9	–4.3	–0.4	–1.0	0.2	1.4
D o m e s t i c u s e s	2.3	–1.3	1.2	–0.4	–1.0	–1.3
Exports	1.7	0.2	–0.1	–7.9	–10.5	–1.2
Imports	3.3	–1.5	3.4	–4.2	–5.3	–5.1
G r o s s d o m e s t i c p r o d u c t (GDP)	1.6	–0.6	–0.3	–2.4	–3.5	0.3
memorandum item:
GDP per hour worked by persons in employment 1)	0.4	–0.8	0.3	–1.3	–2.2	0.8
At current prices
Gross national income 1)	1.5	0.4	0.2	–2.5	–3.3	–0.2
Net national income (factor costs) 1)	1.6	–0.1	–0.2	–2.3	–4.0	–1.0
Compensation of employees 1)	2.1	0.8	0.7	–0.0	–0.6	–0.2
Property and entrepreneurial income 1)	0.8	–1.8	–1.8	–6.4	–10.7	–2.9
Disposable income of households 1)	0.6	0.8	0.3	–0.7	–0.4	0.6
Contributions to growth of the price-adjusted GDP in percentage points
Domestic uses	2.1	–1.2	1.1	–0.4	–1.0	–1.2
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	0.2	–0.3	0.2	–0.2	0.4	0.4
Government final consumption expenditure	0.2	0.1	0.0	0.1	0.2	0.1
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	0.5	–0.5	0.1	–0.4	–1.5	0.1
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	–0.1	–0.1	0.1	–0.3	–1.5	0.0
GFCF in construction	0.6	–0.4	0.0	–0.1	0.0	0.1
Changes in inventories, and so on	1.2	–0.5	0.8	0.2	0.0	–1.9
Balance of exports and imports (net exports)	–0.5	0.7	–1.4	–2.1	–2.6	1.6

Gross domestic product, gross national income and
net national income (factor costs)
– unadjusted figures –
	2008				2009
	1st quarter	2nd quarter	3rd quarter	4th quarter	1st quarter	2nd quarter
Change on the same quarter of the preceding year in %
Use of the gross domestic product
At current prices
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	3.0	3.3	3.0	0.8	–0.1	0.2
Government final consumption expenditure	2.9	4.6	3.8	3.6	5.1	4.5
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	3.9	7.4	5.7	0.0	–11.0	–11.4
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	3.7	6.3	5.3	–3.5	–21.1	–24.4
GFCF in construction	4.3	8.9	6.4	3.4	–3.4	–1.9
D o m e s t i c u s e s	3.0	4.5	4.3	3.0	–0.6	–2.4
Exports	6.5	8.2	5.3	–5.5	–19.2	–23.0
Imports	6.1	8.0	9.4	–0.1	–12.1	–18.3
G r o s s d o m e s t i c p r o d u c t (GDP)	3.4	4.8	2.8	0.2	–5.0	–5.9
Price-adjusted, chain-linked
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	0.8	0.9	0.4	–0.6	–0.1	0.5
Government final consumption expenditure	1.2	2.4	2.2	2.3	2.6	2.3
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	3.1	6.4	4.3	–1.2	–11.1	–10.9
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	4.5	7.2	5.8	–3.0	–20.1	–23.4
GFCF in construction	1.5	5.8	2.7	0.3	–5.6	–2.9
D o m e s t i c u s e s	1.1	2.3	1.8	1.7	–1.1	–2.5
Exports	6.0	7.6	4.2	–5.7	–17.2	–20.5
Imports	4.5	5.7	5.8	1.2	–7.3	–12.5
G r o s s d o m e s t i c p r o d u c t (GDP)	2.1	3.4	1.4	–1.7	–6.4	–7.1
memorandum item:
GDP per hour worked by persons in employment	1.3	0.4	–0.4	–1.5	–3.8	–2.4
At current prices
Gross national income	3.1	4.4	2.7	–0.4	–5.1	–5.5
Net national income (factor costs)	3.7	5.1	2.5	–0.9	–6.5	–7.4
Compensation of employees	3.7	3.7	4.1	3.5	1.0	–0.1
Property and entrepreneurial income	3.6	7.8	–0.2	–9.8	–18.6	–20.7
Disposable income of households	3.2	3.5	3.2	1.0	0.1	–0.1
Contributions to growth of the price-adjusted GDP in percentage points
Domestic uses	1.0	2.1	1.7	1.6	–1.1	–2.3
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	0.4	0.5	0.2	–0.3	–0.1	0.3
Government final consumption expenditure	0.2	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.4
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	0.5	1.2	0.8	–0.2	–1.9	–2.1
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	0.3	0.6	0.4	–0.3	–1.5	–1.9
GFCF in construction	0.1	0.6	0.3	0.0	–0.5	–0.3
Changes in inventories, and so on	–0.2	0.0	0.3	1.7	0.4	–0.9
Balance of exports and imports (net exports)	1.0	1.3	–0.4	–3.3	–5.4	–4.8

Gross domestic product, gross national income and
net national income (factor costs)
– unadjusted figures –
	2005	2006	2007	2008
Change on the previous year in %
Use of the gross domestic product
At current prices
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	1.7	2.3	1.4	2.5
Government final consumption expenditure	0.9	1.6	2.2	3.7
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	0.8	8.4	7.7	4.2
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	4.4	10.6	10.2	2.7
GFCF in construction	–2.1	7.1	6.3	5.8
D o m e s t i c u s e s	1.2	3.3	2.9	3.7
Exports	8.5	14.4	8.0	3.5
Imports	8.9	14.9	4.9	5.8
G r o s s d o m e s t i c p r o d u c t (GDP)	1.4	3.7	4.4	2.8
Price-adjusted, chain-linked
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	0.3	1.3	–0.3	0.4
Government final consumption expenditure	0.4	1.0	1.7	2.1
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	0.9	7.8	5.0	3.1
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	5.4	11.8	11.0	3.3
GFCF in construction	–3.0	4.6	0.0	2.6
D o m e s t i c u s e s	0.0	2.2	1.0	1.7
Exports	7.7	13.0	7.5	2.9
Imports	6.7	11.9	4.8	4.3
G r o s s d o m e s t i c p r o d u c t (GDP)	0.8	3.2	2.5	1.3
memorandum item:
GDP per hour worked by persons in employment	1.4	2.9	0.7	–0.0
At current prices
Gross national income	1.6	4.7	4.4	2.4
Net national income (factor costs)	1.3	4.9	3.5	2.5
Compensation of employees	–0.6	1.7	2.8	3.7
Property and entrepreneurial income	5.5	11.4	4.8	0.2
Disposable income of households	2.0	2.0	1.6	2.7
Contributions to growth of the price-adjusted GDP in percentage points
Domestic uses	0.0	2.1	1.0	1.6
Final consumption expenditure of households and NPISHs	0.2	0.8	–0.2	0.2
Government final consumption expenditure	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.4
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF)	0.1	1.4	0.9	0.6
including: GFCF in machinery and equipment	0.4	0.8	0.8	0.3
GFCF in construction	–0.3	0.4	0.0	0.2
Changes in inventories, and so on	–0.4	–0.2	0.0	0.4
Balance of exports and imports (net exports)	0.8	1.0	1.5	–0.3

For further information please contact:
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tel: (+49-611) 75-2626,

E-mail: gdp-info@destatis.de

For more details please refer to the German version.

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