In the economic survey “Trades and crafts” carried out by Austrian research institute KMU Forschung Austria, 18% of the interviewed entrepreneurs reported an average increase of 19% in incoming orders in the period January to September 2023. 34% of those surveyed recorded a stable development of incoming orders compared to the previous year. 48% of the carpentry businesses reported decreases of an average of 25%. According to KMU Forschung Austria, carpenters raised their sales prices by an average of 6.4% year on year in the first three quarters of 2023. Incoming orders and sales decreased by 14% in terms of volume.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, 10% of the carpentry companies rated their business situation as good (2022: 38%), 56% as normal for the season (2022: 41%) and 34% as bad (2022: 21%). When subtracting the number of companies with a negative assessment from those with a positive one, companies with a reportedly bad business situation outnumber the other group by 24 percentage points. Compared to the third quarter, economic sentiment has become more negative. In the sector, the order backlog ensures full utilization for an average of 9.7 weeks. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, the average order backlog decreased by 22%. 16% of the carpentry companies, which participated in the survey, reported a capacity utilization of one to four weeks in the fourth quarter of 2023. For half of the survey participants, the order backlog was five to nine weeks. For 28% of the respondents, that period was ten to 19 weeks, and 4% reported an order backlog which keeps them busy for 20 or more weeks. 2% of the carpentry companies interviewed as part of the economic survey stated that they had no order backlog at all.
As for the first quarter of 2024, 2% of the survey participants expect their incoming orders to increase compared to the same period of 2023. 44% do not expect any changes and 54% think that there will be a decrease in incoming orders. When subtracting the number of companies with a negative assessment from those with a positive one, the pessimistic assessments outweigh the positive ones by 52 percentage points. Thus, there is increasing pessimism compared to the previous quarter.
