“The German economy is on the brink of the worst recession in its post-war history,” Sinn told daily paper Bild. “We don’t expect any recovery in 2010 either.”
He said Europe’s largest economy would shrink by at least two percent this year.
As one of Germany’s leading economic institutes, many could find Ifo’s forecast troubling. Sinn said the days when the German labour market appeared immune to the global economic crisis were over.
“Unemployment will rise by half a million by December,” he said, adding the number of people out of work could even crack the symbolic four million number in 2010.