Austrian Industrial Production in a Country Comparison

This paper updates an analysis of Austria's industrial development compared to Switzerland, Germany and Denmark published in March 2023. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, industrial production in Switzerland and Denmark has developed significantly better than in Austria and Germany. However, industrial growth in Switzerland and Denmark is mainly focused on the pharmaceutical industry, which has shown a stronger trend growth and remained unaffected by the European economic downturn that began in 2023. Excluding the pharmaceutical sector, Austria's gap with Denmark and Switzerland largely disappears. In comparison with Germany, Austria performs significantly better. Austrian industrial labour productivity per hour worked (excluding the pharmaceutical sector) has risen at a similar rate to Denmark in recent years, somewhat more slowly than in Switzerland and significantly more strongly than in Germany. To examine the different effects of the energy price increases in 2021 and 2022, the analysis was extended to energy-intensive producing industries. They suffered somewhat weaker production losses in Austria than in Germany and Denmark.