BERLIN, March 11 (Xinhua) -- On average, sales of skilled trades in Germany rose by 4.9 percent year-on-year in 2018, in particular because of Germany's booming construction industry, preliminary figures by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) show on Monday.
Across all sectors of skilled trades in Germany, the number of employees increased by 0.5 percent on average over the previous year. The strongest growth of employees was recorded in the health sector with a plus of 1.2 percent, while the largest decline of minus 1.7 percent was in services for private consumers.
In its outlook for 2019, the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) already asserted that "the upward trend in the domestic economy, which is important for the skilled trades sector, should remain intact in 2019."
According to the figures, the strongest increase in sales of 10.7 percent was recorded in the booming German construction industry.
"Thanks to ongoing investments in infrastructure and residential construction, the economic locomotive of construction is now moving full steam ahead for the seventh year in succession," Peter Huebner, president of the construction industry association said in January.
German companies in the construction industry achieved revenues of 127 billion euros (142.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, according to the German construction industry association.
