The President of the Munich Ifo Institute Clemens Fuest sees the danger that the feared spread of the Corona variant Omikron will be fought too hesitantly and that far-reaching lockdowns will become inevitable in Germany.

"If you always wait with measures to combat pandemics until it is really certain that they are necessary, it is too late and the wave of infections lasts longer, costs more lives and damages the economy more than with earlier intervention," said Fuest of the FAZ

Should the wave break through, as forecast by the Federal Government's Expert Council, this could shake the economic forecasts that have so far been optimistic for the coming year. Fuest warns: “An omicron wave that is so massive that there is a longer and comprehensive lockdown for unvaccinated people is not priced in, however. If that does happen, growth will be lower. "

The economist also pointed out that the supply chain problems, which are currently heavily burdening the German economy, worsened again in December.

"Currently, more than 80 percent of companies in industry and trade report delivery problems," says Fuest.

On average, companies expected the problems to persist until mid-2022.

"For some products, such as semiconductors, it should take longer."

"Expect more than 3 percent inflation"

Fuest also commented on the other major economic issue, the sharp rise in inflation. He sees this partly as a normalization after the negative inflation in the second half of 2020. "Nevertheless, there is price pressure, mainly due to scarce raw materials and intermediate products," said Fuest. The number of companies that want to raise prices jumped in the autumn, plus the planned minimum wage increase to 12 euros.

“Overall, I expect inflation to be more than 3 percent in 2022. The further development will mainly depend on the collective bargaining agreements, ”said the Ifo President. He also sees a "latent risk" that the Russian government could use gas supplies as a weapon in the geostrategic conflict with the West. “However, the Russian government will consider very carefully whether it wants to turn off the gas tap. You can only do that once, if Russia wants to sell gas to Western Europe in the future, you'd better keep your hands off that. "

Due to the supply chain problems, the head of the employers' association Niedersachsenmetall, Volker Schmidt, fears the loss of thousands of jobs in the Lower Saxony automotive industry by mid-2022. If the chip crisis continues, up to 30,000 fewer jobs are to be expected by the end of 2022, Schmidt told the "Neue Osnabrücker" Newspaper "from Thursday. "The core task for 2022 will be to keep an efficient supplier industry alive."

In addition to the suppliers to the automotive groups, the upstream operations, such as the foundries, also got into economic difficulties.

"Many of them have been in trouble for a long time," Schmidt told the newspaper.

He called for a "partnership at eye level" between the car companies and their suppliers.

"We are currently light years away from that for some car manufacturers," he criticized.