Munich (dpa / lby) - The Bavarian metal and electrical industry is "tremendously unsettled" in the coming months. "Production is currently falling and the majority of people are pessimistic about the coming months," said Bertram Brossardt, general manager of the Bavarian metal and electrical employers' associations (bayme vbm) on Thursday in Munich. For the year as a whole, the associations are now expecting a drop in production of at least two percent. At the beginning of the year, they were still assuming a slight plus.
In the current economic survey by bayme vbm, the prospects of the companies are meanwhile rated negatively with minus 15.6 points. And the current situation is no longer assessed as well as it was at the beginning of the year. The fact that the situation has not deteriorated further is due to the high order backlog, said Brossardt. "But if procurement prices continue to rise sharply and Russian gas deliveries fail to materialize, then the picture could change drastically." A possible natural gas stop and the natural gas shortage hung "as a great sword of Damocles over everything".
In addition, there is an “extreme illness rate” caused by Corona. In some companies, entire production units are sick. In connection with the debate about the obligation to isolate infected people, Brossardt said that he could definitely get something out of the quarantine and believe that this is also the case for the majority of companies.
Despite all the problems, employment in the industry has been rising again for some time and was most recently at 850,000 - around 8,000 more than in April 2021.
