The ongoing corona crisis will also cause problems for FHI members in Q4 2020
The three largest FHI sectors – Industrial Electronics, Industrial Automation and Laboratory Technology – have had a harder time in the fourth quarter of 2020 due to measures to combat the second corona wave. This is compared to October, our last measurement moment of the FHI corona survey. Only within the sectors Medical Technology and Building Automation the trend improved: more companies indicated that they do not expect problems.
The fourth quarter showed see the image that all sectors increasingly struggled with a lack of supplied products and components, more than we measured in October 2020. The fear of a declining order portfolio actually decreased, although roughly half of all respondents remained afraid of this. The number of members who had to deal with a decrease in turnover in Q4 remained approximately the same. It is also striking that respondents within the Industrial Electronics sector are more often struggling with sick staff: in Q4 2020, 50 percent of respondents indicated this as a problem.
Growth in NOW applications
Compared to October, many more FHI members have made use of the NOW schemes to continue paying wage costs. More than half of the LT members surveyed did so in the last three months of 2020. A small group also made use of the TVL scheme as compensation for fixed costs.
Other measures that companies took more often in Q4 2020 are the reduction of both permanent staff and the flexible shell of employees. Credit was also requested more often to get through the fourth quarter.
In October, many companies – up to almost 60 percent – indicated that they did not expect to have to take additional measures. The fourth quarter shows a similar picture, with the Medical Technology sector as a notable outlier: almost 90 percent did not think they would have to take any new measures.
Changing picture
When asked about order positions, approximately 40 to 50 percent of the companies surveyed indicated that they were in a better position in Q4 2020 than in the same quarter in 2019. However, 40 percent of companies in the Industrial Automation sector indicated that they expect a deterioration.
There is a mixed picture for the expectations for the first quarter of 2021: a large proportion expect the order position to develop in the same way as Q4 2020, but 40 percent of IA and LT members, for example, see a deterioration coming. A similar picture can be seen for the turnover expectations, although once again an optimistic Building Automation sector stands out.
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