After a strong recovery last year, the energy crisis is now affecting medium-sized companies in Germany. This is the result of the SME panel of the state development bank KfW.

Accordingly, since the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the mood in the almost 3.8 million small and medium-sized companies has deteriorated considerably. The sharp increase in energy prices is the greatest uncertainty factor for companies.

KfW: Some of the companies are already financially overwhelmed

It is true that 53 percent of medium-sized companies recently assumed that they would be able to bear the currently high energy prices in the long term. "But the full price effects are yet to be felt and some of the companies are already financially overwhelmed," reported KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib. 13 percent of those surveyed in September stated that the high energy costs would overwhelm them financially in the long run.

According to KfW, small and medium-sized companies largely made up for the losses from the Corona crisis year 2020 last year. Total sales rose by EUR 242 billion to EUR 4,580 billion. The revenues thus approached the pre-crisis level of 2019 of 4615 billion euros.

At the same time, the SME job engine was running smoothly. According to KfW, 32.3 million people were employed in medium-sized companies, roughly the same number as before the Corona crisis. The importance of small and medium-sized companies with an annual turnover of up to 500 million euros for total employment has reached a high of 71.9 percent.