Weekly WIFO Economic Index

WWWI for GDP and its subcomponents

Based on the weekly indicator for GDP (WWWI), unadjusted domestic economic output rose by ¾ percent year‑on‑year in both December 2025 (calendar weeks 49 to 52, 1 to 28 December 2025) and the first three weeks of January 2026 (calendar weeks 1 to 3, 29 December 2025 to 18 January 2026; November 2025 –¼ percent, revised)¹.

The inflation-adjusted volume of cashless transactions, serving as an indicator of household consumption expenditure, shows – compared with the previous year and after a marked collapse in November 2025 – a slight increase in demand for goods (retail sales) in December 2025. Demand for services appears to have fallen in December compared with the previous year. Private consumption rose slightly in December year-on-year (+¼ percent), and is likely to have strengthened noticeably in the first three weeks of January 2026 (+ 2 percent; November 2025 –2 percent).

Gross fixed capital formation is driven by estimated economic output (industrial production) and by sentiment in manufacturing from the WIFO-Konjunkturtest (business cycle survey). In December 2025, investment is estimated to have increased by ¼ percent year-on-year (November 2025 –¼ percent).

Based on developments in industrial production and tourism, as well as major demand components and the resulting effects on foreign trade, net exports in the broad sense made a negative contribution of 1 percentage point to GDP growth in December 2025 (November 2025 –2 percentage points).

Truck mileage on Austria's motorways and passenger numbers at Vienna Airport increased in December 2025 compared with the previous year, while rail freight transport and cargo handled at Vienna Airport declined. According to the WIFO-Konjunkturtest, at the turn of 2025-26, the majority of companies in the transport sector (NACE 2008, section H) continued to assess the current business situation as negative. Based on these indicators, a decline in value added of 1½ percent compared with the previous year is estimated for the transport sector in December 2025 (November 2025 –½ percent).

In December 2025, employment in the goods-producing sector (NACE 2008, sections A to E) declined once more due to the recession, registering a decrease of 1¼ percent compared to the same period last year. The increase in the number of job seekers has continued to slow. The WIFO-Konjunkturtest for manufacturing shows a clear recovery since the beginning of 2025, both in current assessments of the situation and in expectations for the coming months; on balance, however, assessments remain negative. For December 2025 and the first half of January 2026, WIFO expects economic output in the goods-producing sector to have been ¾ percent and ½ percent higher than in the previous year, respectively (November 2025 +¼ percent).

Despite a slight improvement, sentiment among construction companies remains sceptical – both the assessment of the current situation and expectations are still below the long-term average. Employment in construction continued to decline, while the number of persons registered as unemployed in December 2025 fell compared with the previous year. Value added in construction (NACE 2008, section F) is estimated to have been 3 percent lower in December 2025 and in the first half of January 2026 than in the same period of the previous year (November 2025 –4 percent).

Based on cashless transactions in restaurants and hotels and sentiment indicators from the WIFO-Konjunkturtest, value added in tourism (accommodation and food services, NACE 2008, section I) in December 2025 is estimated to have been 1¼ percent lower than in the corresponding period of the previous year. It is also likely to have remained below the previous year's level in the first half of January 2026 (November 2025 0 percent). In trade (NACE 2008, section G), value added is expected to have increased by 2 percent year-on-year in December 2025 and the first half of January 2026 (November 2025 –4½ percent).

The current employment situation in the remaining market-related services and the sentiment indicators from the WIFO-Konjunkturtest point to continued moderate positive development in this sector. For the remaining market-related services (NACE 2008, sections J to N), value added is estimated to have increased by ¼ percent in December 2025 compared with the previous year (first half of January 2026 +½ percent, November 2025 +¼ percent). Value added in other personal services (NACE 2008, sections R to T), based on employment trends and business expectations from the WIFO-Konjunkturtest, is likely to have declined by ½ percent in December 2025 compared with the previous year (first half of January 2026 +1 percent, November 2025 –3 percent).

¹ The inclusion of newly published and revised monthly data, which must be taken into account when estimating the WWWI, led to a revision of the WWWI for GDP. Notable supply-side WWWI revisions occurred particularly in trade (NACE 2008, section G), and the remaining market-related services (sections J to N).

The WIFO Weekly Economic Index (WWWI) is a measure of the real economic activity of the Austrian economy on a weekly and monthly frequency. It is based on weekly, monthly and quarterly time series to estimate weekly and monthly indicators for real GDP and 18 GDP sub-aggregates (use side 8, production side 10) of the Quarterly National Accounts.

With the release for June 2022, the econometric models for the historical decompositions and for nowcasting have been converted to seasonally unadjusted time series. In addition, year-on-year growth rates are now used to estimate the models.

The WWWI estimates are (currently) updated monthly and published on the WIFO website.