Press release No. 199 of 6 June 2025

Production in industry
April 2025 (in real terms, provisional):
-1.4% on the previous month (seasonally and calendar adjusted)
-1.8% on the same month a year earlier (calendar adjusted)

March 2025 (in real terms, revised):
+2.3% on the previous month (seasonally and calendar adjusted)
-0.7% on the same month a year earlier (calendar adjusted)

WIESBADEN – Production in industry in real terms (price adjusted) was down 1.4% in April 2025 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 0.5% higher in the period from February 2025 to April 2025 than in the previous three months. After revision of the provisional results, production increased by 2.3% in March 2025 compared with February 2025 (provisional figure: +3.0%). Compared with April 2024, production was down 1.8% in April 2025 after adjustment for calendar effects.

Production decreasing in many economic branches

Numerous economic branches contributed to the negative development in industry in April 2025. Production in the pharmaceutical industry, for example, was down 17.7% month on month after seasonal and calendar adjustment. In March 2025 it had increased by 19.3%. The drop in output registered in the manufacture of machinery and equipment (-2.4%) also weighed on overall performance in April 2025. By contrast, production in the construction sector (+1.4%) and the food industry (+5.7%) showed a positive performance trend.

In April 2025, production in industry excluding energy and construction was down 1.9% from March 2025 after seasonal and calendar adjustment. Within industry, the production of capital goods decreased by 2.3%, the production of intermediate goods fell by 1.9% and consumer goods production was down 1.5%. Outside of industry, energy production dropped by 1.6%.

Compared with April 2024, production in industry excluding energy and construction was down 2.5% after calendar adjustment.

Production down in energy-intensive industrial branches

Production in energy-intensive industrial branches declined by 2.1% in April 2025 from March 2025, after elimination of seasonal and calendar effects. A three-month on three-month comparison showed that production in energy-intensive industrial branches was 0.8% higher in the period from February 2025 to April 2025 than in the previous three-month period. Adjusted for calendar effects, production in energy-intensive industrial branches was down 2.7% in April 2025 compared with April 2024. 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.

Revision of earlier results:

As of reporting month April 2025, the monthly production figures have been revised for the production index from January 2024 onwards.

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 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 (only in German) is available on the "Industry, manufacturing" page.

The production index can also be found on the Economic Dashboard, which is part of Dashboard Germany (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.