Andreas Klauser, CEO of crane manufacturer Palfinger, talks about the recession in Germany and Co., the relocation of production from China and the new promising market India. And he explains why he is no longer creating jobs in Austria.
“Crown”: Palfinger is a cyclical, global company with good figures in recent years. There is now a recession in parts of Europe. Is there light on the horizon?
Andreas Klauser: We started this year with a very good order book from 2023. Now we see a clear clouding. We have – as we say in English – a ‘mixed bag’. We operate in markets that are completely underperforming, where the construction sector, the building industry and the building materials trade are developing very negatively. This applies to Scandinavia, Germany and France. On the other hand, there are markets such as Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece that are developing particularly positively. Then we have markets that are functioning very stably: we have seen significant growth in North America, so we expect a positive impact there next year as well. How much pain does Europe have then? It is more than 50 percent of our turnover. America is now heading towards 30 percent, thank God. I can compensate for that, and we will continue to compensate for that. We have already reduced all production figures here and will be introducing a flexible working hours model in the autumn, where you have fewer working days.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
