The Swiss machinery, electrical equipment and metals industry recorded solid growth in the first half of the year. The branch, however, sees the clouds gathering on the horizon and fears for the evolution of its activities, indicates the Swissmem umbrella on Tuesday.
Over the first six months of the year, new orders jumped by 10.1% and are around 30% above the pre-crisis level, i.e. the last quarter of 2019.
Sales increased by 12.1%, both large and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) benefited from the solid economic situation, and this should continue to be the case in the second half of the year .
Exports grew by 9.0% to 36.5 billion francs, driven by double-digit growth in Asia (+14.1%) and a solid performance in Europe (+8.5%) and in the United States (+7.5%). By product category, metals (+13.3%), electrical engineering and electronics (+8.9%) as well as precision instruments (+7.6%) and machine building (+7 .4%) all saw overseas sales increase.
Capacity was 90.3% utilized in the second quarter, according to the KOF survey, but fell slightly in July to 89.5%, still above the long-term average of 86.2. %.
The clouds are gathering
Despite this “pleasant” development of activities, there is nevertheless “little reason to be euphoric”, notes the organization in its press release.
The difficulties in the supply chains, the drastic rise in the prices of raw materials and energy and the depreciation of the euro weigh on the margins of companies in the sector. Added to this is the risk of energy shortages this winter, a situation which must “absolutely be avoided”, because it would put “jobs at risk”.
The outlook has deteriorated among the members of the umbrella organization: 30% of companies thus expect a drop in orders from abroad over the next twelve months and only 29% now expect an increase, once morest 35% in the previous quarter.
The pessimism is also illustrated in the purchasing managers’ index in the euro zone, the main market for the Swiss MEM industry. It fell in July below the growth zone for the first time since mid-2020.
Between April and June, 320,900 people were employed in the MEM industry in Switzerland, i.e. 2.4% more than in the second quarter of 2021. Job vacancies in the sector jumped by 32% over one year.
This article has been published automatically. Source: ats/awp