Num­bers & Facts

The pho­to­nics indus­try 2025 at a glance

This and fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found in the bien­nial ›Opto­Net PHOTONICS Report 2025‹, which pro­vi­des infor­ma­tion on cur­rent business
figu­res, per­son­nel fore­casts, mar­ket ori­en­ta­tion and exports.

Find the full report here.

Pho­to­nics indus­try in Thu­rin­gia: Strong indus­try, weak economy

Press Release on the Publi­ca­tion of Indus­try Figu­res · June 20, 2025

The pho­to­nics indus­try in Thu­rin­gia is hol­ding its own in a chal­len­ging envi­ron­ment. While indus­try sales and employ­ment figu­res remain at a solid level, the mood among com­pa­nies has dete­rio­ra­ted signi­fi­cantly. After more than 15 years of almost unin­ter­rupted growth, the high-tech sec­tor, which is pre­do­mi­nantly cha­rac­te­ri­zed by small and medium-sized com­pa­nies, is under noti­ceable pres­sure due to the eco­no­mic weak­ness and incre­asing eco­no­mic uncertainty.

These are the key fin­dings of the PHOTONICS Report Thu­rin­gia 2025, which the Opto­Net asso­cia­tion of com­pa­nies pre­sen­ted today in Jena. For the cur­rent edi­tion, 125 com­pa­nies and rese­arch insti­tu­tes were sur­veyed in detail on busi­ness figu­res, tech­no­logy trends, per­son­nel requi­re­ments and future pro­s­pects. more

Archive

Since 2001, we have been sue­vey­ing the key play­ers of the Thu­rin­gian pho­to­nics indus­try every two years. From the very begin­ning, Opto­Net e.V. has been sci­en­ti­fi­cally sup­ported in this pro­cess by socio­lo­gists from Fried­rich Schil­ler Uni­ver­sity Jena. The in-depth inter­views are con­duc­ted by telephone.