The steady decline in German industry’s employment figures continues, with the country’s valuable automotive industry leading the way. A new study by accounting giants EY, based on data from the government’s statistics office, recorded around 51,500 jobs lost in the auto industry within one year. This corresponds to 6.7% of the total workforce of the sector and makes up almost half of the 114,000 industrial jobs lost in the same period.<\/p>\n
The phenomenon also seems to be accelerating, with almost half of the job losses occurring in the past 12 months. This is a significant increase compared to the period before the Covid-19 pandemic. Exports to the USA and China have already fallen quickly, and new tariff disputes will probably not help with both countries.<\/p>\n
The sales of German industrial companies fell by 2.1% in the second quarter of 2025, much more than the negative growth of 0.3% as a whole. Only the electronics industry improved sales in the quarter, while the income from automotive companies dropped by 1.6%. Exports to the USA, the largest internal market in Germany, have dropped by around 10%. Jan Brohriker from EY predicted that "improvement is not in sight" in view of the introduction of new, somewhat higher tariffs by President Donald Trump with 15% for cars.<\/p>\n
A strong break-in of exports to China also affects the auto industry. Long Germany’s second most lucrative export market, China has risen to sixth place in the ranking, with a decline of 14% compared to the previous year in the last quarter. "The United States and China are currently the cause of important concerns," said Brohriker. "The Chinese market was particularly attractive for the automotive industry for a long time with very large margins."<\/p>\n
The EU and China have recently been involved in their own collective bargaining battle, especially with regard to China’s cheaper electric cars, and the rapidly growing Chinese auto industry itself covers more and more domestic demand. This has led to a decline in exports to China, which is expected to continue.<\/p>\n
Large companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Audi, Bosch, Continental, ZF, and Porsche have started cost reduction programs, and often these cuts begin in foreign production facilities. "Manufacturers of German automotive companies and components logically react to the difficult situation of the industry with a savings drive," said EY’s Brohriker. "Massive profit reductions, excess production capacity, and weakening export markets make considerable work cuts in Germany – in Germany, where management, administration, and F&E workplaces are based."<\/p>\n
EY predicted that the falling jobs would probably have a continuous trend, citing the continuous restructuring and cost reduction plans, which would continue to lead to layoffs. It also predicts a more difficult future for prospective young engineers who leave school or university. "The car engineering and mechanical engineering sector sets considerably fewer young people than in previous years," said Brohriker. "The labor market for young engineers becomes uncomfortable, many have to realign."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German Industry’s Employment Decline Continues The steady decline in German industry’s employment figures continues, with the country’s valuable automotive industry leading the way. A new study by accounting giants EY, based on data from the government’s statistics office, recorded around 51,500 jobs lost in the auto industry within one year. This corresponds to 6.7% of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3702,3694,3698,3703,864,3699,3704,1748,321,93,3697,3696,1644,1814,390,70,3173,1563,448,392,3707,3700,3705,3706,82,3695,385,3701],"class_list":{"0":"post-20787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-audi","9":"tag-automotive-industry","10":"tag-automotive-industry-in-the-united-states","11":"tag-bosch-company","12":"tag-china","13":"tag-collective-bargaining","14":"tag-continental-ag","15":"tag-covid-19-pandemic","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-economic-growth","18":"tag-electronics-industry","19":"tag-externality","20":"tag-german-empire","21":"tag-germany","22":"tag-industry-economics","23":"tag-inflation","24":"tag-international-trade","25":"tag-management","26":"tag-manufacturing","27":"tag-market-economics","28":"tag-mechanical-engineering","29":"tag-mercedes-benz","30":"tag-porsche","31":"tag-profit-economics","32":"tag-sales","33":"tag-secondary-sector-of-the-economy","34":"tag-tariff","35":"tag-volkswagen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20789,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787\/revisions\/20789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}