Dienstleistungen: Verbesserte Geschäftssituation

Assessments of the current business situation in the service sector reflect a surge in optimism over the past two months. After three consecutive declines, the indicator for the current business situation rose to its highest level to date this year. At the same time, the service providers expressed greater confidence about developments in the months ahead. The business climate improved, with the indicator remaining significantly above its long-term average. According to the German Federal Statistics Office, business service providers reported considerably higher turnover than for the first quarter of the previous year. The increase in turnover of 6.3% was even higher than the already very satisfactory result in the last quarter of 2016 (+3.4%). In the business survey assessments of developments in turnover compared to last year were very favourable in the first quarter of 2017 and remained very positive in the months that followed. In July a larger share of service providers also expressed confidence in the developments in demand in the months ahead. According to the German Federal Statistics Office, the number of employees recently rose by 3.1% compared to the previous year (in the first quarter of 2017). An above-average number of service providers surveyed also reported increasing their staff base in recent months and that they plan to continue to hire in the months ahead.