Press release No. 383 of 8 October 2024
Production in industry
August 2024 (in real terms, provisional):
+2.9% on the previous month (seasonally and calendar adjusted)
-2.7% on the same month a year earlier (calendar adjusted)
July 2024 (in real terms, revised):
-2.9% on the previous month (seasonally and calendar adjusted)
-5.6% on the same month a year earlier (calendar adjusted)
WIESBADEN – Production in industry in real terms (price adjusted) was up 2.9% in August 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 1.3% lower in the period from June 2024 to August 2024 than in the previous three months. After revision of the provisional results, production decreased by 2.9% in July 2024 compared with June 2024 (provisional figure: -2.4%). Compared with August 2023, production was 2.7% lower in August 2024 after adjustment for calendar effects.
Significant increase in production in the automotive industry
Currently, production in the automotive industry fluctuates considerably from month to month and this has an impact on the monthly development of production in industry as a whole. In August 2024, the seasonally and calendar adjusted production of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers rose by 19.3% compared with the previous month, following a decline of 8.2% in July 2024.
In August 2024, production in industry excluding energy and construction was up 3.4% from July 2024 after seasonal and calendar adjustment. The production of capital goods rose by 6.9% and that of intermediate goods by 0.1%. The production of consumer goods remained unchanged (0.0%). Outside industry, energy production in August 2024 was up 2.3% and production in construction rose by 0.3% compared with the previous month.
Compared with August 2023, production in industry excluding energy and construction in August 2024 fell by 3.1% after calendar adjustment.
Production up in energy-intensive industrial branches
Production in energy-intensive industrial branches increased by 0.1% in August 2024 from July 2024, after elimination of seasonal and calendar effects. A three-month on three-month comparison showed that production in these industrial branches was 0.7% higher in the period from June 2024 to August 2024 than in the previous three months. Adjusted for calendar effects, production in energy-intensive industrial branches was up 2.2% in August 2024 compared with August 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. 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:
Our database's new user interface will leave the beta phase and go online in the second half of October 2024. The new interface will offer faster data retrieval and intuitive table search and customisation options. There will also be 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.
