Economic Assessments of Austrian Companies in the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Results of the WIFO-Konjunkturtest Quarterly Survey of January 2021

In the last quarter the economic assessments by Austrian companies were determined by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. In January, the economic indices were positive only in the construction industry. The WIFO-Konjunkturampel (economic traffic light) confirms this picture, showing yellow and indicating an interruption of the recovery process from summer. Accordingly, uncertainty remains high in all sectors. There are differences in the development of a capacity utilisation rates across sectors, but it remained low except for the construction industry. Companies named "insufficient demand" followed by "other obstacles" as the most important obstacles to economic activity.