The gas price is falling but remains volatile.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Jobs are being cut, entire sectors are reorienting themselves: More and more companies are cutting back on their investments or entire business areas because of the rise in energy prices. This is the result of a representative survey by the Munich Ifo Institute among 1060 companies, which is available to the Handelsblatt. 25 percent of the companies state that they are reacting to the stress by cutting jobs. Six months ago it was 14 percent.
Increasingly, companies are even starting to reduce their production in Germany: In the survey, 17 percent of all companies stated that they wanted to completely give up energy-intensive business areas. Six months ago it was eleven percent.
Energy prices, especially gas, have recently normalized somewhat and have fallen from their peak in August 2022, when the wholesale price for one megawatt hour on the Dutch TTF exchange was EUR 346, to just over EUR 100 recently. In previous years, however, a megawatt hour only cost between ten and 20 euros, five to ten times less than today.
However, consumers have not yet noticed the fall in prices, on the contrary. Some of the price peaks from the summer will only reach end customers in the next few months. Many would therefore have to expect gas prices to be three to four times higher than at present, explains energy economist Lion Hirth from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.
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Consumers will also have to live with higher prices in the medium term. Because even if the gas price has fallen noticeably in the past two weeks, energy prices remain at a historically high level.
“Fatal development in Germany”
Further jumps in electricity prices are also to be expected in the coming months. The companies are already preparing for this. 57 percent of the companies surveyed by the Ifo want to postpone planned investments. “This fatal development in Germany is accelerating,” warns Rainer Kirchdörfer, head of the Foundation for Family Businesses, which commissioned the Ifo Institute to conduct the survey.
A significant proportion of the price increases since the beginning of the war have already made their way through to companies. According to the Ifo Institute, in 2022 an average of 8.2 percent of total sales will be attributable to energy costs. In 2021 it was only 5.1 percent. In order to at least partially absorb the burden, 90 percent of the companies surveyed stated that they would increase prices.
Ifo researcher Timo Wollmershäuser makes it clear that despite the planned relief, politicians cannot free the economy from all problems: “We have to expect that one or the other company will not survive this crisis.”
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