News › Pho­to­nics indus­try in Thu­rin­gia: Strong indus­try, weak economy

Opto­Net e.V. com­pany asso­cia­tion pres­ents report on busi­ness situa­tion and per­son­nel requi­re­ments in Thu­rin­gi­a’s high-tech sector

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. 

Busi­ness situa­tion deteriorates

The mood in the indus­try has impro­ved com­pared to the last sur­vey dete­rio­ra­ted signi­fi­cantly. Only just under half of the com­pa­nies sur­veyed rated their cur­rent busi­ness situa­tion as »very good« (10 %) or »good« (36 %).
»The gene­ral eco­no­mic weak­ness and geo­po­li­ti­cal uncer­tain­ties are weig­hing on com­pa­nies»explains Dr. Jörg Wag­ner, Chair­man of therChair­man of Opto­Net. »The reluc­tance to invest in the indus­try has a direct impact on the order situa­tion of many com­pa­nies through.«

Slight decline in sales, mode­rate growth expected

The annual tur­no­ver of the Thu­rin­gian Pho­to­nics indus­try has been since the last Sur­vey 2023 adjus­ted for infla­tion Slight decline and lag 2024 with E 4 bil­lionuro. Loo­king ahead to the cur­rent finan­cial year and 2026, com­pa­nies are more opti­mi­stic again: 43% expect reve­nue to increase and anti­ci­pate at least mode­rate growth.

Rese­arch expen­dit­ure at record level

At over 600 mil­lion euros, R&D invest­ments rea­ched a new high in 2024 – this cor­re­sponds to a rate of around 15%. This means that com­pa­nies are cle­arly focu­sing on the future, even in uncer­tain times: inno­va­tion remains the key to sus­tainable growth. The respond­ents see great poten­tial in the field of semi­con­duc­tor tech­no­lo­gies, for exam­ple, where many com­pa­nies are working on fur­ther deve­lo­ping in which many com­pa­nies are actively invol­ved through new pro­ces­ses, spe­cia­li­zed com­pon­ents or inno­va­tive actively invol­ved.

High export share

With an export share of 72 %, the pho­to­nics indus­try more than twice as high as the average for the manu­fac­tu­ring indus­try in Thu­rin­gia (35% in 2023). Wes­tern Europe, North Ame­rica and China con­ti­nue to be among the most important sales mar­kets. The com­pa­nies sur­veyed curr­ently see the grea­test growth poten­tial in Europe – and the­r­e­fore no lon­ger in the USA, which was recently the lea­der. At the same time, there is gro­wing con­cern about incre­asing trade bar­riers, par­ti­cu­larly in the USA and China. The con­sis­t­ently high export ratio con­firms the strong inter­na­tio­nal com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness of the indus­try and at the same time makes it clear how cru­cial free trade and sta­ble sup­ply chains are for suc­cessful deve­lo­p­ment.

More employees and 650 vacancies

Since the last sur­vey at the begin­ning of 2023 have been more than 1.000 new employees:inside were hired. This means that a total of 19.600 skil­led workers in the pho­to­nics indus­try in the state, 2.700 of them in uni­ver­sity and non-uni­ver­sity rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons. The trai­ning rate has deve­lo­ped posi­tively: it has risen from 3.2% to 4.2% in the past two years.
Curr­ently around 650 vacan­cies posi­ti­ons adver­ti­sed. We are not only loo­king for Engineer:inside, Phy­si­cists or Com­pu­ter sci­en­tistsbut also Skil­led workers for the pro­duc­tion areas. The cast vacan­cies is shaped despite the eco­no­mic down­turn deman­ding – qua­li­fied per­son­nel is still short.

Demands on politicians

The mana­gers sur­veyed see clear tasks for the new fede­ral govern­ment. They par­ti­cu­larly fre­quently men­tion the reduc­tion of exces­sive bureau­cracy and the repair of public infra­struc­ture. Cor­po­rate lea­ders also see the increased pro­tec­tion of our demo­cracy as a key poli­ti­cal task.
»Thu­rin­gia is and remains an excel­lent loca­tion for opti­cal tech­no­lo­gies,« says Anke Sieg­meier, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Opto­Net e.V. »Howe­ver, the posi­tive deve­lo­p­ment of recent years is not a sure-fire suc­cess. As an inno­va­tion dri­ver with a light­house cha­rac­ter, the Pho­to­nics indus­try far into other indus­tries. To ensure that it can con­ti­nue to secure inno­va­tion and employ­ment in Thu­rin­gia, tar­ge­ted poli­ti­cal impe­tus is nee­ded now , less bureau­cracy, a relia­ble stra­tegy for skil­led workers and sta­ble frame­work con­di­ti­ons.«

Very good marks for OptoNet

The majo­rity of the com­pa­nies sur­veyed are mem­bers of the pho­to­nics net­work Opto­Net and use the ser­vices offe­red by the com­pany net­work in the area of coope­ra­tion media­tion, tech­no­logymanage­mentement and recrui­ting young talent. These offers from the office are almost exclu­si­vely finan­ced by « very good« or »good«, more than 85% of the respond­ents also recom­mend other indus­try repre­sen­ta­ti­ves unre­ser­vedly a mem­ber­ship.

About Opto­Net

Opto­Net bund­les the inte­rests of curr­ently 135 play­ers in the Thu­rin­gian optics clus­ter, streng­thens their net­wor­king and coope­ra­tion and thus pro­mo­tes the deve­lo­p­ment of opti­cal tech­no­lo­gies in the region. The aim is to increase com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness and enhance the natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal visi­bi­lity of the clus­ter.
As a ser­vice pro­vi­der for its mem­bers Opto­Net a joint com­mu­ni­ca­tion and coope­ra­tion plat­form and is actively invol­ved in secu­ring skil­led workers, pro­mo­ting young talent and loca­tion mar­ke­ting. Since spring 2023, the clus­ter manage­ment has been cer­ti­fied with the ECEI GOLD label for »Clus­ter Manage­ment Excel­lence«.

The PHOTONICS Report 2025

The report on cur­rent busi­ness figu­res, sales and employ­ment fore­casts has been published every two years since 2001. The sur­veys were com­mis­sio­ned by Opto­Net from the CATI Lab of the Insti­tute of Socio­logy at the Uni­ver­sity of Jena.

Sur­vey period	Janu­ary to March 2025
Com­pa­nies and rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons addressed	208
Suc­cessful surveys	125
Inter­view form	Tele­phone inter­view or online survey
Average length	26 minu­tes
Con­duc­ting the interview	CATI Lab, FSU Jena, Tho­mas Ritter
Sci­en­ti­fic support	Dipl.-Soc. Chris­toph Thieme