In April, carpentry businesses and timber-construction companies in Germany generated 15.2% higher sales revenue than in the same month of last year. The figures published by the federal statistics office (Destatis), show that the business thus achieved the highest growth so far this year and the highest figure for an April in the last ten years. After regressive development in January (-19.6%) and February (-9.7%), sales revenue became positive again in March (+7.6%). Cumulated over the first four months (+1.3%), last year’s figure was only exceeded by a small margin. The number of employees was up by 4.3%. Amongst the branches of industry recorded by Destatis, sales revenue from timber construction were also at pole position, followed by roofing and sheet-metal working businesses (+5.3%).
In the German building and civil-engineering industries, sales revenue rose by a single-figure percentage in April in each case. This only partly compensated for the previously negative development. As such, the figure for the building and civil-engineering industry was 5.6% lower than in the same four-month period of last year whereas the number of employees was 1.6% higher. Building-construction companies generated 7.2% less in sales revenue and had more or less the same number of employees as last year.
