German medium-sized companies plan more investments, new jobs: study

BERLIN, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- About one third of medium-sized companies in Germany wants to invest more money and to recruit new employees in the coming months, a study showed on Thursday.

Investment readiness and employment dynamics are to be expected in the first half of 2018 record values, the study "middle class barometer" carried out by the consulting firm Ernst & Young showed.

61 percent of the medium-sized companies surveyed rated their current situation as good, which is the highest value since the first edition of the study in 2004.

At the same time, the sales are also expected to grow in 2018 by 2.1 percent year on year, marking the highest level since the beginning of the study.

In addition, around 36 percent of medium-sized companies plan to increase the number of employees in Germany, while only every thirteenth company is expected to reduce the number of jobs.

The study surveyed 2,000 medium-sized companies across Germany with at least 20 million euros (24 million U.S. dollars) and the highest turnover of 1 billion euros.

"German medium-sized companies experience right now gold times," said Micheal Marble, an analyst at EY and responsible for the survey results.

"Positive momentum is currently coming from both domestic and foreign sources...Fortunately, the European economy continues to recover, with more orders coming from countries such as France, Italy and Spain," Marble added. (1 euro = 1.20 U.S. dollars) Enditem