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Consumers shopping (in Aschaffenburg): Currently content with the bare essentials
Photo: Andreas Arnold / dpa
It's a cumbersome term: consumer climate.
This is an estimate of how confident consumers are in an economy.
Or rather, the economically relevant part of their confidence: Do they look to the future with such optimism that they dare to make larger purchases?
Or do they fear lean times and keep their money together?
This consumer mood in Germany is measured by the Society for Consumer Research (GfK).
And she has nothing good to report at the moment.
The consumer climate she measured in Germany has fallen to a record low: the value for July was minus 27.4 points, which was another 1.2 points less than in June, which was also bad.
"The ongoing war in Ukraine and disrupted supply chains are causing energy and food prices in particular to explode and making the consumer climate more gloomy than ever," said GfK consumer expert Rolf Bürkl (click here for the GfK report). .
The institute has been measuring the consumer climate since 1991, but has never registered such a bad value as it is currently.
Are citizens holding back their savings as a precaution?
Above all, the almost eight percent increase in the cost of living depressed the mood, he said.
Purchasing power is melting away.
The hope that the savings accumulated during the pandemic would be converted into purchases will probably not be fulfilled.
"If private households have to pay significantly more for energy and food, there are correspondingly fewer financial resources available, especially for larger purchases," says a GfK statement.
As a result, the domestic economy will also suffer in the coming months.
Bürkl called on the European Central Bank to adopt a moderate monetary policy.
Inflation must be pushed back.
However, the economy should not be stalled by too large jumps in interest rates.
beb/Reuters
