On January 10, 2019, students in the Bachelor’s program in Industrial Engineering, accompanied by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Link, visited the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) in Wiesbaden as part of the Mathematical Economics and Statistics module. In accordance with the Federal Statistics Act, Destatis is tasked with providing official statistical information in Germany. Compiling these statistics often requires collaboration with the state statistical offices, which are responsible for collecting the data and processing it to produce state-level results. In this context, Destatis is responsible for coordinating the uniform and timely compilation of federal statistics, as well as for the subsequent compilation and publication of the results in press releases or in annual statistical series for the federal government and for general purposes.
In addition to providing statistical information on the economy, population, social affairs, and the environment, Destatis also conducts statistical surveys in the construction and real estate sectors. For example, in a press release, they reported that in November 2018, prices for new conventionally constructed residential buildings were 4.8% higher than in the previous year. Such a high annual increase in construction prices was last recorded in November 2007.
In addition to maintaining price and cost indices for the construction industry and purchase values for building land, Destatis also monitors construction activity (building permits, construction completions, housing stock) and the construction trade (economic and structural data) in Germany.
In the age of digitalization, the rapid availability of quality-assured information is becoming increasingly important across all sectors. To strengthen its role as a leading provider of high-quality statistical information, Destatis introduced the Genesis information system—an information database—in 2014. Genesis-Online provides open access to data, enabling users to access up-to-the-minute, neutral, objective, and professionally independent statistics. Over 238 statistical tables containing a total of approximately 863 million data points are stored in Genesis. Unfortunately, however, only about 3.6 million tables are currently retrieved from the system each year. Yet, especially in the age of fake news, access to information compiled in accordance with the principles of objectivity, neutrality, and scientific independence is becoming increasingly important.
