But reluctance to invest
Despite the ongoing corona crisis, German medium-sized companies are entering the new year with great confidence. This is shown by the results of the business survey conducted by the Federal Association of Medium-Sized Enterprises (BVMW) with over 2,300 participants.
According to this, the vast majority of medium-sized companies are hopeful when it comes to their own company: Over 70 percent assess their own business situation as satisfactory or better, and almost 70 percent expect the business situation to remain the same or even more favorable over the next twelve months.
On the other hand, entrepreneurs are pessimistic about the overall economic development for 2021. Over 60 percent expect a recession in Germany. The general economic uncertainty is having a correspondingly strong impact on the planned investment activity: only 25 percent want to increase their investment volume in the next twelve months, but almost 40 percent want to invest less than this year.
The German government must now set the course for investment and growth in 2021. “Millions of medium-sized companies and the self-employed expect better economic framework conditions in order to be able to regain confidence,” said BVMW Federal Managing Director Markus Jerger.
The family entrepreneurs are meanwhile looking at the New Year with concern. Only 46 percent anticipate a positive development of their operative business in the coming year, as a survey of 1,116 members of the associations “Die Familienunternehmer” and “Die Junge Unternehmer” shows. Nevertheless, the entrepreneurs want to hold on to their employees. 53 percent want to keep the number of jobs constant, only 16 percent want to reduce it. 26 percent of the companies plan to create more jobs in 2021. In the previous year it was 33 percent. Reinhold von Eben-Worlee, President of the “Die Familienunternehmer” association, complains that Germany is one of the countries with the highest taxes and social security contributions.
