Construction: Business Climate Hits New High

In construction the business climate improved for the eighth month in succession, reaching its highest value since German reunification. Both assessments of the current business situation and the six-month business outlook were more positive. Machinery capacity utilisation rose to 74.9% and thus exceeded the figure for the same period of the previous year by around one percentage point. Survey participants reported constraints on construction activity slightly more frequently than last month (26% versus 25%). The largest share of constraints was attributed to a lack of orders (11%); while 10% of contractors complained of a lack of workers. Negative weather influences had hardly any role to play (4% of firms). The order backlog across all construction segments remained unchanged on average at 3.4 months. On balance, only 1.4% of the contractors surveyed considered their current order intake as too small, versus 12.4% for the same period a year previously. According to company reports, prices were increased slightly more frequently than last month. Moreover, a growing number of contractors expect to implement further price increases in the near future. Contractors were previously willing to expand their staff bases over the next three to four months and this dynamic gathered further impetus in November.