BERLIN, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Consumer sentiment in Germany has worsened for the second consecutive time, Germany's largest market research institute GfK announced on Wednesday.
The monthly consumer sentiment index compiled by the GfK institute declined slightly by 0.1 points to 10.1 points in June.
"Main reason for the declining consumer sentiment would have been worsened income expectation among Germans," GfK said.
For July, the GfK is predicting an even further decline of the index to 9.8 points and is expecting the worst consumer climate in Germany in around two years.
After seemingly stable economic developments recently, "income expectations had a bitter pill to swallow in the form of its June losses," the GfK institute stated.
The institute's indicator for Germans' income expectations fell by 12.2 points to 45.5 points, its lowest level since march 2017.
In the past, the income indicator would have been profiting from the "excellent development" of the job market in Germany, according to GfK.
But now, concerns about job losses would be increasing among German employees since "voices heralding the end of the employment boom are growing", GfK explained.
"Topics such as the trade conflict with the United States, Brexit and the current U.S.-Iran conflict are particularly relevant for employees in the export-oriented industry and their suppliers," Rolf Buerkl, consumer expert of GfK told Xinhua and added that in these sectors "the fear of job loss can rise and this has obviously affected the income indicator".
Economic expectations stopped their "downward spiral" in June as the GfK's indicator rose by 0.7 points to 2.4 points, but still 17 points below last year's figures, according to GfK.
A "global economic cooling off", on-going discussions around Brexit as well as international trade conflicts would "put a strain" on the export-oriented German economy, GfK said.
German economic experts are also expecting a lower growth of the economy in 2019. Three major German economic research institutes unanimously stated in mid-June, that Germany's economy would suffer especially from uncertainties due to global trade conflicts.
GfK's index for the propensity to buy among Germans increased in June. Recovering from the losses in the previous month, the index rose by 3.2 points to 53.7 points total.
However, if income expectations would decline further in the upcoming months, it would be "tough" for the propensity to buy among Germans to maintain its "currently excellent level", GfK emphasized.
