The mechanical engineering industry is increasingly experiencing a drop in orders and cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the VDMA flash survey, many companies are making capacity adjustments.
The situation in mechanical engineering has further intensified due to the consequences of the corona pandemic. At the end of March, 84 per cent of the member companies surveyed by the VDMA were already reporting adverse effects. to 89 per cent (mid-April) increased.
In addition, the relative shift in problems has continued: towards demand-side disruptions, i.e: Loss of orders or cancellations.
„Overall, 45% of companies reported a noticeable drop in orders or cancellations, with 32% of respondents even reporting serious ones. However, supply chains are also still under strong pressure,“ says VDMA Chief Economist Dr Ralph Wiechers.
The Epicentre of the disturbances remains in Europe. More than 90 per cent of mechanical engineering companies reported supply and demand-side disruptions from Europe. On the demand side, there are also high levels of disruptions from the USA (47 per cent). In China, on the other hand, the situation appears to be stabilising.
More than three quarters of companies see no easing for the next three months of the disrupted supply chains, 28 per cent of companies even expect the situation to worsen.
Most respondents are even more critical of the development of the order situation - on the demand side 43 per cent expect the situation to worsen. With regard to expected sales, the companies' assessment has not changed significantly: similar to March, around 60 per cent of the companies expect sales of Decline in sales of between 10 and 30 per cent for 2020 as a whole.
Large companies are increasingly using instruments to reduce capacity
At the Third VDMA flash survey on the corona consequences participated A total of 790 companies from the mechanical engineering sector. The proportion of companies making capacity adjustments has risen from 75 to 83 per cent in the last three weeks.
„More and more companies are putting their employees on short-time working and initiating production stops and job cuts - even for parts of the core workforce. Large companies with an annual turnover of more than one billion euros use these instruments to adjust capacity more frequently than medium-sized companies.“
Dr Ralph Wiechers, VDMA Chief Economist.
Should there be a change in the foreseeable future Relaxation of measures In order to contain the coronavirus pandemic, a third of companies expect that they will need 1 to 3 months and 3 to 6 months respectively to return to normal capacity utilisation. More than 20 per cent of the companies surveyed even expect this step to take 6 to 12 months.
Source: VDMA
