Knowledge-intensive businesses need more specialists 16. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot In the year 2007 one third of all newly hired employees having vocational training or an university diploma were taken on by research-intensive industrial companies or knowledge-intensive service providers. According to the IAB institute, back in the year 2000 this percentage was just 25%. The other side of the coin was revealed through a representative …
One in four businesses sell over the internet 14. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot The importance of the internet as a sales channel is rapidly growing. 24% of German businesses are already selling their products and services over the internet. This is an increase by 33% as compared to last year. According to the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM), this not only helps businesses …
More and more Germans read news on the internet 11. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot A growing number of Germans prefer the internet to traditional sources such as radio, tv and print media in order to inform themselves. The 20 German news portals attracting most visitors such as for example the Focus and Spiegel online portals were visited almost 2.4 billion times over the first half of this year, as …
Internet boosting mail order trade 11. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot Turnover generated by the mail order business has been increasing due to the internet. Online mail order trade in goods increased by 23% to a total of 13.4 billon Euros. Thus in total sales in the mail order trade increased by 3.7% to 28.6 billion Euros.
In May German exports increased by 2.5% 10. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot German exports in May 2008 increased by 2.5% to 80.8 billion Euros worth of goods in comparison with May 2007, but over the same period imports increased even more significantly by 8.2% to 66.5 billion Euros. Thus, even in absolute figures imports increased more than exports.
Home office more popular than company office 9. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot About two thirds of Germans would like to work regularly or partly from home instead of going to the offices in their companies. However, currently only one in one hundred employees has the opportunity to work from home. This is the finding of a respresentative survey among more than 1000 Germans carried out by the …
Germany is lacking 96.000 engineers 8. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot There is an increasing lack of engineers in the German economy. According to the Association of German Engineers (VDI), there were 96.000 posts for engineers which could not be staffed in June 2008. This means that the number of vacancies has virtually doubled since the year 2004. There is, however, also a positive aspect to …
Sales in retail trade up by 1.2 percent in Eurozone 7. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot Turnover generated by retail trade in May in the Eurozone (EZ15) increased by 1.2% as compared to April 2008. In the EU27 sales were up by 1.3%. In comparison with April this year, when the changes on the previous month had been -0.6% and -0.4% respectively, this is a significant improvement.
Steiff case is not an exception 7. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot According to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute for research on innovation and systems, the return of the Steiff company, a cuddly toy producer, to Germany is not a single case. According to this study, 20% of companies which had relocated abroad in the past have been coming back to Germany. The main reasons for …
Energy prices affect tourism 4. July 2008 by Thomas Jannot High energy prices put at risk an ever growing number of economic sectors. They also hamper the business of the German gastronomy and coach operators. This is underlined by a new tourism report compiled by the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry. According to this report, 32% of hotel managers expect business to …