Press release: 12.712-010/22

Inflation remains at 4.3% in December 2021 (HICP: 3.8%)

Vienna, 2022-01-20 – In December 2021, the inflation rate was 4.3%, as Statistics Austria reports (November 2021: 4.3% as well). Expenditures for transport (+12.0% compared to December 2020, including fuels +32.9%) proved to be the most important price driver, followed by expenditures for housing, water and energy (+5.4%, including heating oil +44.3%, electricity +12.4%).

The consumer price index (CPI 2020) was at 105.4, while the average price level increased by 0.6% compared to November 2021.

The measures to contain COVID-19 and the lockdown in December had a significant impact on the calculation of the December inflation rate (last day of the lockdown: mostly 11.12.; the lockdown period turned out to be different in the nine federal states of Austria.). Only those goods and services entered the calculation as missing prices, which were not available in more than half of the month of December. Overall, most of the measures affected the sectors gastronomy and hotels and to a lesser extent the sectors personal services like hairdressers, culture, tourism, entertainment, leisure, sport and the retail sector. The price surveys for the consumer price index were changed from in-store collection to internet price collection (in particular the retail sector, except supermarkets and drugstores: in-store collection). Where necessary, imputation methods like seasonal imputation, all items imputation or carry-forward were applied. In total, this affected about 9.2% of the weight of the basket of goods and services. For further in-depth explanation of the general principles and applied computation methods, please refer to the methodological information note (PDF, 1 MB) on the compilation of the CPI in the context of COVID-19.

The index level of the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP 2015) was 113.95 in December 2021 (November 2021: 113.63 revised) with a harmonised inflation rate at 3.8%.

For more detailed information please refer to the German version.