According to a study, the digital industry in Germany has grown at an above-average rate in recent years. “Over the entire observation period from 2009 to 2022, the number of people employed in the ICT industry increased by around 59 percent – significantly more than in all comparable sectors,” said Thomas Niebel, an expert at the Mannheim research institute ZEW. The ICT industry includes information technology and telecommunications companies. Different areas of the commercial economy were compared.
In 2022 alone, the number of people employed in the information and communications technology industry rose by around six percent to almost 1.5 million employees and self-employed people subject to social security contributions.
According to the information, the industry is proving to be particularly strong in terms of start-ups. On average over the past three years, the rate of newly founded companies relative to the total number was 7.3 percent. This is followed in second and third place by transport and logistics (5.7 percent) and tourism (5.6 percent), according to the study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economics.
Strong and innovative
With the exception of a pandemic-related setback in 2020, the number of companies grew continuously between 2009 and 2022. “Over the entire observation period, the number of companies in the ICT industry showed the most dynamic growth of all the industries examined,” reported ZEW co-author Robin Sack. The number of ICT companies increased by almost 23 percent during this period to around 99,000 in 2022. This corresponds to a share of 3.9 percent of the commercial economy in Germany.
According to the study, ICT companies are also particularly innovative. The proportion of companies that have introduced a new product or a new process in the past three years is around 85 percent. The electrical engineering/mechanical engineering sectors follow with around 72 percent, vehicle construction with almost 66 percent.
In 2022, sales in the ICT industry, including price increases, rose by twelve percent compared to the previous year to a high of almost 315 billion euros. Within the commercial economy, however, only 4.2 percent of sales came from ICT. Retail continued to be at the top by far, with a share of sales of 34.8 percent.
