Looking at the following economic KPI, the current picture does not look so bad – the usual German autumn boom might finally have arrived. But hey, let’s straight go into the details:
The German GDP flatlined in the 3rd quarter of 2025. Nevertheless, the German „economic wise (wo-)men“ („Wirtschaftsweise“) expect a GDP-growth of 0.2% in 2025 and 0.9% in 2026 (here).
At least, German industrial orders shows a feable sign of „autumn boom“: after decreasing by -1.4% (MoM, but +5.3% YoY) in May, -1.0% (MoM, but +0.8% YoY) in June, -2.9% (MoM, even -3,4% YoY) in July and by -0.8% (MoM, but +1.5% YoY) in August, orders increased by +1.1% (MoM, but -4.3% YoY) in September 2025.
Also, Germany’s industrial production further continued its zig-zag-course but fortunately rose: after growing by 1.2% (MoM, still 1.0% YoY) in May, decreasing by -1.9% (MoM, even -3.6% (!) YoY) in June, gaining +1.3% (MoM, +1.50% YoY) in July, then crashing by a catastrophic -4.3% (MoM, still -3.9% YoY) in August bevor growing by +1.3% (MoM, aber -1.0% YoY) in September 2025.
German exports, too, grew: after decreasing by -1.4% (MoM, but +0.4% YoY) in May, exports expanded by 0.8% (MoM, even +2.4% YoY) in June, before again receding by -0.6% (MoM, but +1.4% YoY) in July and another -0.5% (MoM, even -0.7% YoY) in August, before gaining +1.4% (MoM, even 2.0% YoY) in September 2025.
For other German KPI’s, I refer you, first, to the usual „Destatis Deutschland-Dashboard“ (here) and the „Data Commons (Germany)“ (here), but also to the new IWH Forecasting Dashboard and the DATEV Mittelstandsindex.
The German Target 2 balance lost a rather insignificant 3bn in October 2025 and ended at Euro 1,049bn. The German inflation-rate slowed down a bit: starting from its peak of 10.4% in October 2022, the rate decreased to finally 1.6% in September 2024 but has re-increased to again to 2.6% in December 2024, before again decreasing to 2.0% in June 2025, where it remained in July, increasing to 2.2% in August and to 2.4% in September, before decreasing to 2.3% in October 2025 (each YoY).
The German Labor market eased a bits: After decreasing to 6.2% in May, unemployment remained at this level in June before rising to 6.3% in July, to 6.4% in August, before decreasing to 6.3% again in September and to 6.2% in October 2025 (all MoM). German insolvency filings further increased: Afterfalling by -0.7% in May, again increasing (moderately) by +2.4% in June, filings increased by 19.2% in July, by another 11.6% in August, by 10.4% in September and by a rather moderate 6.5% in October 2025 (all YoY; cf. my most recent comment, here, in German).
The leading German sentiment indicators – with the exception of ZEW -were negatively in sync: The German (Industrial) Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) slightly increased by 0.1 points to 49.6 points in October 2025. Also, the ZEW Indicator for business expectations gained another 2.0% and rose to 39.3% in October 2025. The ifo Business Climate Index, too, gained 0.7 points and increased to 88.4 points in October 2025. Finally, also, the GfK-consumer index increasd by 1.0 points to -22.5 points in October 2025.
To sum up: Leaving the still growing insolvency figures out (which is a lagging indicator anyway), every other figure – „hard“ KPI or sentiment index – has been on a positive track in October 2025. Is this the turning point? Rather yes a cheering Wirtschaftswoche-comment suggests (here, in German). Rather not as the commentary for the current (lower) unemployment figures shows: „Employment growth remains weak and demand for new employees is low. Overall, the autumn recovery has been sluggish so far.“ (again here, in German). I think that the latter comment sets the right tone for the assessment of the current situation and for the look into the near future.
The downside-risks standing in the way of a substantial boom are diverse: Any delay in the delivery of chips might stop the feable recovery (here, for an example of good supply chain management cf. here, for a bad example here, all in German).
Especially in Germany, we had so much closures of industrial enterprises in the last year alone that it might amount to an existential brain drain already (cf. here). But even if one does not want to go so far – the risk of a simple further bout of inflation is just around the corner (cf. here).
Also, companies need the most money ever (here, in German) which in turn rises eyebrows as to the risks associated with the debt (here, in German), which in turn triggers fears of another financial crisis (here, in German). The German Bundesbank (here and here, in German) and the Bank of England (here) already voiced their concerns accordingly. And the Fed seems indeed to be busy to avert a liquidity shortage in the US market already (here).
All-in-all we see a weak recovery which does not seem to have real underlying power, the prospect of a not really substantial growth in the near future, one which is even tied to diverse severe downward risks. Hence, let’s enjoy this moment of growth an hope for the best.