Member survey 2022  

Evaluation of our member survey 2022, realized in cooperation of the FDS and the ESU. The members of the FDS and the ESU were surveyed separately, so that we could compare the answers of the German members of the FDS with those of the international members of the ESU.

Chart 1 summarizes the responses of the members of the German FDS association and the international members of the ESU. Respondents who chose the option “other” could not commit to a clear development. Their opinion is:

• There will be further consolidation in the market. This will eliminate individual jobs that are being created at larger manufacturers.
• It depends on the specialization. Good in the corrugated board sector…very difficult in the automotive sector, for example. Overall, the majority (52%) assesses the development on the labor market as rather negative to negative.

In chart 2, we have shown how the answers are distributed within the ESU and the FDS. While the majority of FDS members assess the situation as neutral to rather negative, more than 61% of the international members of the ESU assess the development of the labor market as rather negative to negative.

In this graphic 3, the answers of the FDS and the ESU are again summarized. If we look at the result of all answers, 32% see the development of customer specifications as positive to rather positive, the largest part of 47% sees no changes here and 21% see the development as rather negative to negative.

In graphic 4, we again look at the responses of the FDS members and those of the other ESU members. Here, it is noticeable that the members of the ESU assess the development with regard to customer specifications as positive to rather positive with 44.4% of the members of the FDS, none of the respondents view the development positively and only 10% rather positively, whereas 30% view the development as rather negative to negative. For the ESU, this is only 16.6%. Obviously, the international members have a more positive view of this development than the German members.

One of the biggest current problems is the supply of raw materials and precursors. But how do our members see the development in the next few years? The majority of members, 41%, see the development as rather negative, and a further 3% see it as completely negative. Only 14% see a rather positive or completely positive change in the next few years. Graphic 5 shows the evaluation again for the members FDS and ESU together.

When analyzed separately, the picture is similar to the previous question. Only the international members of the ESU see the development in the next few years as positive or rather positive, at least 22.2%. Among the members of the German federation, FDS, no one sees the development as positive or rather positive, a full 45.5% rather negative, 36.4% neutral and 18.2% do not want to commit themselves here. See graphic 6

The overall economic situation is difficult enough for our industry. In this context, how do our members assess the development of competitive pressure over the next few years? As before, we first look at the combined result of both groups, FDS and ESU. Only 14% have a positive and rather positive view of the development of competitive pressure, the majority of all members, 59%, see the development as rather neutral, while 27% see the situation as rather negative to negative. See graphic 7

When analyzed separately, the international members’ assessment of the development is mostly neutral at 72.2%. 11.2% see the situation as rather positive to positive and 16.7% rather negative to negative. Among the members of the German association, FDS, no members see the development positively, 18.2% rather positively, 36.4% neutrally. The largest group has positioned itself on the negative side, with 27.3% rather negative and 18.2% negative. See graphic 8

Laser die cutting, digital creasing (see ESU Magazine 3-2022, page 20), etc. – we wanted to know from you how you assess the development in the next few years. If we look at the overall result of all answers, the ratio is rather balanced. Positive to rather positive 31% see the development, 28% negative to rather negative, 41% see the development rather neutral. See graphic 9

Separate analysis again shows a clear difference between FDS and ESU members. Of the German members, none sees the development as positive or rather positive, the vast majority, 63.6%, expect the development to be neutral and 36.4% rather negative to negative. Among the international members of the ESU, 40% see the development as positive to rather positive, 27.8% as neutral and 22.2% as rather negative. Absolutely no member of the ESU sees this development as negative. See graphic 10

Members were able to give several answers to this question. The percentages therefore indicate how many of the members see a shortage of this raw material. For wood, especially plywood, 91.3% of all participants see a particular shortage in the future. See graphic 11

Here, the answers could not always be clearly assigned to a material. However, the data should certainly be able to serve as an orientation. See graphic 12

Graphic 13, click for larger view

We asked this question exclusively to the diemakers. Here, there were no significant differences between the members of the FDS and those of the ESU. Fortunately, the view of the future is on the positive side with 63.7%, 27.3% expect hardly any changes and only 9.1% see the future rather negatively. See graphic 14