Revenue for Germany’s medium-sized businesses rose by 2.7 percent in June compared to the previous year. However, according to the Datev SME Index reported by the FAZ, this rise does not signal a clear improvement or turnaround.
Robert Mayr, CEO of the Datev Cooperative, warned against overinterpreting the revenue jump, noting that while some areas are stabilizing, the sector is still far from a broad recovery. This follows a drop of 1.2 percent in the revenue index during May.
A persistent challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises is the rising cost of labor, which is putting pressure on companies whose revenue has remained narrowly fluctuating since 2024. The wage index jumped by 6.3 percent year-over-year in June. This widening gap between stagnant sales and increasing operational costs is becoming increasingly pronounced.
Furthermore, employment within the SME sector decreased by 0.1 percent, according to the Datev Index, confirming a slow contraction that has been ongoing since 2024.
Datev, the IT service provider for tax consulting professions, compiles the SME index using anonymized data derived from VAT declarations spanning more than one million businesses and payroll records from over eight million employees. The index serves as a key indicator of the economic development within German medium-sized enterprises.
