According to a study, the corona pandemic, which has lasted two years so far, has cost the German economy around 350 billion euros.

This sum was lost in economic output, said the employer-related Institute of German Economics (IW Cologne) on Sunday.

In the current first quarter, another 50 billion euros could possibly be added.

Other experts even fear a new recession as a result.

"The recovery will take years," said IW economist Michael Grömling.

According to the institute, Germans have spent 270 billion euros less on their consumption in the past two years than would have been the case without the pandemic. That corresponds to around 3,000 euros per person. In addition, companies invested around 60 billion euros less. "Government spending and exports at least partially cushioned the economy in the second year," the institute said. Problems with supply chains in particular slowed down the second Corona year. The lack of components is particularly difficult for the automotive industry. The production gap in the entire industry has increased to seven and a half percent.

However, with the emergence of the rapidly expanding omicron variant, the researchers also see light at the end of the tunnel. "Should we enter the endemic phase this year, things should go uphill again," said Grömling. "In the next few years, strong growth will be needed to make up for the losses that have been incurred so far."

In the current first quarter, however, the ongoing corona restrictions could plunge Europe's largest economy into a recession. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach expects at least 400,000 new corona infections per day for mid-February. "If there are a lot of lost working days, that's a new stress factor," said Nils Jannsen, head of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), to Reuters. "This makes a recession more likely." The Germany chief economist at Deutsche Bank, Stefan Schneider, also sees it this way: "We will see a technical recession".

According to an initial estimate by the Federal Statistical Office, the German economy had already shrunk by between 0.5 and 1.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021.

If another minus quarter follows, Germany would be stuck in a so-called technical recession.

However, Schneider does not expect a crash like at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic.

"We have learned to live with it," said the expert, who assumes that gross domestic product will fall by around half a percent in the current quarter.