Recruit Sales in Germany & Covid 19 Update Bulletin June 2021

Recruiting in Germany Bulletin

Welcome to our June 2021 Recruiting in Germany Bulletin.

If you are looking to recruit experienced sales staff to enable you to exploit new or existing markets within Germany, the UK, Europe or further afield, please call us for a no-obligation discussion.

Economic Commentary - what they are saying

GERMAN ECONOMIC INDICATORS June 2021

German economic sentiment weakened unexpectedly in June, but financial market experts' assessment of current situation improved sharply, survey data from the ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research showed. The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment dropped to 79.8 in June from 84.4 in the previous month. The score was forecast to rise to 86.0.

However, assessment of the current economic situation improved significantly in June with the index rising to -9.1 from 40.1 a month ago. The assessment of the economic situation is now back to the pre-pandemic level of August 2019. Due to the very high economic expectations, the outlook is now much more positive than in summer 2019, the survey showed.

Above all, the automobile market is very robust with all the German manufacturers reporting healthy profits especially within Asian markets, highlighting also the Chinese market as being the most important.

What is holding back further growth in this market is the acute lack of semi-conductors worldwide, thus hitting production.

The decline in expectations is probably largely due to the considerably better assessment of the economic situation, which is now back at pre-crisis levels. The financial market experts therefore continue to expect a strong economic recovery for the next six months.

The head of the Bundesbank has reported that rising inflation is likely to require policy ‘tightening’  and warns German inflation will surge to more than 3% in 2021. The amount of borrowing over the course of the pandemic and the rising oil prices have been major contributors to this. Nevertheless, a healthy bounce in the economy is still expected moving forward.

A senior government official has been reported as saying that the German economy, Europe’s biggest, may grow up to 4% this year as the coronavirus pandemic recedes.

The GfK consumer climate index is expected to rise to minus 7.0 in June from May’s minus 8.6. The anticipated improvement in sentiment levels comes on the back of lower numbers of new Covid-19 cases and greater inoculation, facilitating the easing of restrictions and fuelling confidence.

German Exports

Exports from Germany jumped 47.7% year-on-year to EUR 111.8 billion in May 2021, due to the very low level of foreign trade last year. Sales to the Euro Area were up 59.8% and sales rose 36.5% to countries outside the EU, namely the UK (64.1%), China (16%) and the US (59.9%)

The Government

After more than a year, the German government will lift the travel warning for tourist travel to Corona risk areas on 1 July. This currently affects almost 100 states worldwide in whole or in part. From 1 July, the Federal Government will also no longer generally advise against tourist travel abroad. From 1 July, the travel warning will only apply from an incidence of 200 and for areas where dangerous virus variants have spread strongly. These are about 40 countries worldwide.

According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Monday, 38 million people (45.7 per cent) in Germany have been vaccinated at least once, 17.7 million people (21.3 per cent) have been fully vaccinated. A total of 54.9 million vaccination doses against the coronavirus have now been administered in Germany.

A new law on human rights in supply chains adopted by the German Parliament on June 11, 2021, ushers in a long-awaited shift to mandatory company compliance rules in Germany, Human Rights Watch said today. The German parliament acted to adopt the law during the last days of the current legislative period, after months of negotiations.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has met with the Heads of Government of the Länder. During the video conference, Angela Merkel, Berlin’s Governing Mayor Michael Müller and Bavarian Minister President Markus Söder underlined common ground in the field of digitalisation. Also, on the agenda were the energy transition, the Pact for the Rule of Law, and of course the current situation with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Compiled by SA in June 2021 from various public and widely available news sources and articles.

*Please note the information contained herein is an aggregate of news stories, by commentators widely available - readers should seek independent verification, and this in no way represents the views or opinions of Standley Associates.

We will continue to check the news reports and will provide monthly summaries of the trends