The General Association for the German Textile and Fashion Industry explains in its economic report based on the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office that the negative sales trend from the previous month continued in June. Sales in the entire industry fell by 9.8%. In the first half of the year as a whole, they were 4.3% lower than in the same period last year. In the textile segment, sales for the first six months were -5.3%, and in clothing -4.3%. No segment was able to report sales growth in June.
The number of companies fell by 4.0% in the textile segment and by 9.5% in the clothing segment. The number of employees is also 5.1% lower for textile companies and 3.0% lower for clothing companies than in 2023. The number of working hours has fallen even more: in the textile industry by 6.1% in the period up to June and by 4.2% in clothing. Gross wages and salaries, on the other hand, have only fallen by 1.8%. In the clothing segment, they rose by 3.4% in the period up to June, but fell by 3.6% in June.
Producer prices have leveled off again after the inflationary surges and are at a level that has hardly changed. Compared to the previous year, this means that prices for textiles have hardly changed, while clothing prices have risen by 1.5% year-on-year as of June. The foreign trade figures are unsatisfactory. In the first half of the year, exports fell by 4.7% (textiles -8.2%, clothing -3.0%). In June, they fell by 14.9% in the textile segment and by 10.2% in the clothing segment.
The economic climate continued to deteriorate in August. The main reason given is that exports are not providing any support in the current case and there is also a lack of orders. This means that expectations for companies in the clothing industry are worse than they were even during the Corona phase. Although the economic climate for textile companies has stabilized somewhat, it is still at a very low level.
