BERLIN, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- For residential construction in Europe's largest economy, 2023 was "another lost year" with falling orders, the Federation of the German Construction Industry said on Thursday.
According to figures published on the same day, housing construction companies received 6.7 percent fewer orders in November compared to the same period of 2022. November also marked the 20th month of a year-on-year decline in the sector.
This was "a worrying development," not only for the construction companies but also for those who are urgently looking for a home, industry federation chief executive Tim-Oliver Mueller said in a statement.
From January to November last year, Germany's residential construction even recorded a 21.2-percent slump in incoming orders, according to Thursday's figures.
While the rate of decline appeared to have eased, Mueller said that this was merely a relative slowdown, stemming from the fact that orders had already plunged by double digits in 2022. "If the market is already completely down, it simply can't go any lower."
Last year, Germany's housing crisis was exacerbated by high inflation and costly financing. According to industry estimates, there is already a shortage of 550,000 apartments. A recent study even estimated a shortfall of more than 900,000 units for low-income earners alone.
Due to escalating rents, over one in three of Germany's 21 million tenant households are grappling with housing costs which exceed 40 percent of some families' income, according to a study conducted by the tenants' association Deutscher Mieterbund (DMB) and the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB).
"The housing crisis is a socio-political scandal that is increasingly becoming a problem for companies too," said DGB board member Stefan Koerzell last month. "They are increasingly unable to fill their positions because there is hardly any affordable housing for new employees locally."
To counteract the trend, the German government has announced plans to invest 2 billion euros (2.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the construction of affordable housing in the coming two years. (1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollar) ■
