“After a slight increase in the previous quarter, the German economy slowed down again in the spring,” Destatis president Ruth Brand was quoted as saying by Europa Press.
In this way, the largest economy in the Old Continent has recorded declines in GDP in four of the last seven quarters, and although it has avoided a technical recession, it has not been able to record two consecutive quarters of expansion in the past two years.
Destatis stressed that Germany's economic results between April and June “were below those of many other countries”, as GDP developments in the second quarter improved in other large EU member states.
Between April and June of this year, Spain recorded the largest quarterly increase in GDP (+0.8%), while France and Italy managed to record at least small increases (+0.3% and +0.2% respectively).
In the United States, GDP rose by 0.7% in the second quarter.
In its monthly bulletin for August, the German central bank, the Bundesbank, expressed confidence that the country would record a “slight expansion” between July and September, although it warned that wages still pointed to an upward trend going forward.
Accordingly, the entity expects “a modest expansion in economic output” in the current quarter, despite continued weakness in the construction and manufacturing sectors, with real household incomes continuing to rise and consumer spending also expected to pick up.
On the other hand, the German Statistical Institute highlighted that Germany recorded around 46.1 million employed people in the second quarter, which represents an increase of 167 thousand people, or 0.4%, compared to the second quarter of 2023, despite the recovery in employment in the spring. The year 2024 was below the corresponding average for 2022 and 2023.
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