Germany’s GDP Records a Slight Dip of 0.1% in 3rd Quarter of 2023, Marking a Weaker Start to H2

Germany’s GDP Records a Slight Dip of 0.1% in 3rd Quarter of 2023, Marking a Weaker Start to H2

(IN BRIEF) Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2023 declined by 0.1% when adjusted for price, seasonal, and calendar variations compared to the previous quarter. This decrease follows a slight increase in economic performance in the second quarter of 2023 and stagnation in the first quarter of the same year. Household final consumption expenditure notably decreased, while positive contributions came from gross fixed capital formation in machinery and equipment. On a year-on-year basis, the GDP was down by 0.8% when price-adjusted and 0.3% when both price and calendar adjusted.

(PRESS RELEASE) WIESBADEN, 31-Oct-2023 — /EuropaWire/ — The gross domestic product (GDP) fell slightly by 0.1% in the third quarter of 2023 compared with the second quarter of 2023 after adjustment for price, seasonal and calendar variations. In the second quarter of 2023, economic performance had increased slightly (+0.1%, revised), after stagnating in the first quarter of 2023 (revised).The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that household final consumption expenditure, in particular, was lower. Positive contributions, by contrast, came from gross fixed capital formation in machinery and equipment.

Gross domestic product down year on year

GDP in the third quarter of 2023 was down a price adjusted 0.8% compared with the third quarter of 2022. The decrease was smaller (-0.3%) after price and calendar adjustment as there was one working day less than in the same period a year earlier.

Revision of previous results

In addition to calculating first data for the third quarter of 2023, as usual the Federal Statistical Office also reviewed the results published earlier for the previous quarters and included new statistical information in the calculations for the first and second quarter of 2023. This resulted in changes of up to 0.2 percentage points for the price adjusted GDP data published so far. Detailed recalculation data are shown in the table comparing old and new figures at the end of this press release.

Methodological notes

The differing comparative periods must be taken into account in all press releases on short-term indicators. Short-term economic monitoring focuses on comparisons of seasonally and calendar adjusted figures with those of the previous month or quarter. These reflect short-term economic trends. Year-on-year comparisons enable long-term comparisons of levels and are hardly influenced by seasonal fluctuations. The results of month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year comparisons may differ considerably in the years of the Covid-19 crisis and due to the war in Ukraine. In addition, the current GDP results still are subject to greater uncertainties than usual. This applies in particular to the price, seasonally and calendar adjusted quarterly data.

More information

Detailed results for the third quarter of 2023 will be released by the Federal Statistical Office on 24 November 2023.

A long time series containing quarterly results on the gross domestic product since the first quarter of 1970 is available in the “Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen” (only in German) statistical report.

GDP data are available also on Dashboard Germany at (www.dashboard-deutschland.de) (only in German). This data portal of the Federal Statistical Office combines up-to-date indicators from official statistics producers and other data providers on the topics of the economy, finance, health and mobility. The portal also contains the Economic Pulse Monitor (Pulsmesser Wirtschaft) (only in German) tool for real-time economic monitoring.

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SOURCE: Destatis