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Incoming orders increased for many industrial SMEs in the fourth quarter of 2021.
New figures from the industry association Swissmechanic, which will be published next week and are available exclusively to SRF News, show how well Swiss industrial SMEs are doing. According to this, 65 percent of industrial SMEs reported increasing incoming orders in the final quarter of 2021 – and every second SME was able to increase the profit margin compared to the same quarter of the previous year during the said period.
Economic recovery continues
Things are also going well for the Waterjet company in Aarburg, Bern. The company manufactures high-precision parts primarily for the watchmaking and medical technology industries. Sales in the fourth quarter of 2021 were record high.
Company boss Walter Maurer is confident that the recovery will continue in the current year: “Since we have been working at full capacity again since December and it looks like that for the next few months, we are very confident that we will have a good year. We have hired new staff and are optimistic about making ends meet.” Mauer adds that he is glad that the majority of the problems caused by the pandemic are now off the table.
Supply chains as the greatest challenge
Like Walter Maurer, four out of five companies surveyed by Swissmechanics rate the current business climate as very favorable or fairly favorable.
And the utilization of production capacities is higher than it has been since spring 2019. This means that the pre-corona level has been reached or even exceeded. However, the aftermath of the pandemic, especially supply chain problems, is a cause for concern: 62 percent of the industrial companies surveyed consider this to be the greatest challenge at the moment, followed by a shortage of workers and the strong Swiss franc.
confidence for this year
Nevertheless, companies are optimistic about the coming months: almost 40 percent of industrial SMEs expect rising orders in the first quarter of 2022, 45 percent rising sales, 35 percent rising profit margins. The survey results from Swissmechanics are also supported by the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office from today, Friday.
Accordingly, Swiss industry continued to recover from the corona pandemic in the fourth quarter of 2021. Specifically, production in the secondary sector (excluding construction) increased by 7.3 percent in the period from October to December 2021 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.