© ifo Institut / VDMA

The machines in Germany are better utilized: In January 2018, capacity utilization was 87.9% - "This is the highest level of capacity utilization since April 2012," says Welcker at the Hannover Messe 2018. Whereas in the past, companies predominantly complained about a lack of orders as an obstacle to production, in 2017 one in four companies reported bottlenecks due to a shortage of labour.