London (CNN Business) Europe's largest economy may be in recession for the first time since the region's debt crisis.

A shock plunge in industrial output in November suggests Germany may have suffered a second consecutive quarter of economic contraction at the end of 2018.

Industrial production in Germany plummeted 1.9% compared to the previous month, according to data published Tuesday. That's much worse than the 0.3% uptick economists polled by Reuters had expected.

Carsten Brzeski, ING's chief economist in Germany, said the data showed that the risk of recession had "clearly increased." Oxford Economics downgraded its growth forecast for the fourth quarter to 0% and said recession was now "a reasonably high risk."

Official growth figures for the final three months of 2018 will be published next week. Germany's economy shrunk 0.2% in the third quarter, and another three months of contraction would mean the first recession since 2013.

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