Unfortunately, the period April to June 2020 did not bring any surprising news, and Acimall’s quarterly survey shows a difficult situation: The decline in orders for woodworking machines and tools is significant. Such a result was inevitable considering the closure of factories in April and the slow, gradual recovery of manufacturing operations in May.
Even a strong month of June could not save the final result of the quarter, which was severely affected by mass redundancies and distance working. However, the Italian sector is expecting stronger demand in the second half of the year.

The quarterly survey showed a 39.2 percent drop in orders compared to the same period last year, due to a 34.2 percent drop in international demand and a shocking 59.2 percent drop in domestic demand.

Seven percent of respondents indicated a positive trend in production (compared to 12 percent in the first quarter), while 86 percent indicated a decline in production (compared to 69 percent in the quarter from January to March) and the remaining 7 percent indicated a stable situation (compared to 19 percent).

At the end of the first quarter of 2020, 69 percent of firms expected a decline in employment; this figure has now fallen to 47 percent, while 53 percent believe that the employment trend will be stable (compared to 75 percent three months ago). Nobody expects a positive trend in employment.