The loss of purchasing power and high inflation due to energy prices are leading the German economy into recession and the worst crisis in the last 50 years, different economists agreed, according to a survey released this Saturday.
While Marc Schattenberg of Deutsche Bank Research predicted a drop in gross domestic product (GDP) of up to 3.5% next year, other economists considered that the recession It will be somewhat more moderate, but it will also affect all sectors of the largest European economy.
“The economic slowdown also will make its mark on the labor market“, said Fritzi Kohler-Geib, chief economist at the state development bank KfW, for whom the purchasing power of households is expected to suffer above all.
“Due to the high inflationthe financial situation of households has deteriorated considerably since the beginning of the year,” said Kohler-Geib, who also expects real incomes to continue to decline in the second half of the year.
Schattenberg expressed a similar opinion: “A large part of households will have to face significant real income losses”.
For her part, Katharina Utermöhl, an economist at the Allianz Group, summed up the situation even more clearly: “We will all come out of the crisis poorer”; and she considered that Germany is going through the worst crisis in the last 50 years, reported the German news agency DPA, which conducted the survey.
“This dwarfs the great financial crisis (of 2008) and the euro debt crisis”he limited, while asking to cushion the consequences of high inflation.
“On the one hand, with fiscal policy measures by the State, but also with the savings of individuals,” he defended.
