The machinery has been deleted from the crisis, fewer jobs than expected. Optimistic is the association still does not: This crisis is far from over, the order situation slack – and the staff, therefore, not yet.
Hamburg – The machine had feared bad, at first they can breathe easier. The German engineering has removed in the crisis so far fewer jobs than expected. Until the end of October were in the industry, only 28,000 permanent jobs had been cut, "said Hannes Hesse, CEO of the Association of German Machinery and Plant Manufacturers (VDMA), the" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "We can not imagine that our own forecast is still occurring." Middle of the year, the association had spoken of 60,000 jobs, which are under threat this year. "Now it appears that the number of 40,000 jobs is much more likely," said Hesse.
The favorable situation was due primarily to the employers: "Given the huge declines in orders and output show that the companies are really doing everything to keep their workforces," said Hesse. At the end of 2008, the German machine had worked in companies with more than 50 employees or in the aggregate 954,000 people. Many companies have since separated from their temporary workers and fixed-term contracts are not renewed.
Whether the coming year will be better, would not say Hesse, because the job situation was still calm. "The workforce reduction is certainly not over yet, and some companies may wait too long with these decisions." The fall in production in mechanical engineering in 2009 would certainly feared by the Association mark of minus 20 percent, "maybe even a little more," said Hesse. "In production, it’s been worse this year than expected." The capacity utilization in the industry was 70.7 percent in October, although slightly above the value of the previous month but still at extremely low levels. The order backlog has decreased on average 4.6 months, four months are in mechanical engineering as a critical threshold.
Tags: frankfurter allgemeine zeitung, favorable situation, plant manufacturers, critical threshold, german engineering, workforces, german machinery