Germany's metal and electrical industry is on course to lose up to 150,000 jobs this year alone, according to the country's leading employers' association for the sector. Gesamtmetall, which represents employers across the metal and electrical industry, has painted a stark picture of an economy in structural decline, warning that the situation has reached a critical tipping point.
"We are in the middle of a deindustrialisation and the outlook is very bleak. The situation is really dramatic," said Oliver Zander, head of Gesamtmetall, in comments published Sunday by the newspapers of the Funke media group.
The scale of the crisis becomes clearer when set against the longer trend. Zander pointed out that the industry has already shed 270,000 jobs since 2018, with the workforce now falling below 3.8 million employees for the first time since 2015. "The metal and electrical industry is in crisis," Zander said. "Since 2018 we have already lost 270,000 jobs. Last month we fell below 3.8 million employees in our sector, something we have not seen since 2015."
At the heart of the crisis, according to Zander, is a fundamental competitiveness problem rooted in Germany's cost structure. He cited excessive energy costs, high corporate taxes, steep social security contributions and an overwhelming burden of bureaucracy as the key factors pushing businesses away from investing in Germany.
"We are so unattractive that investment is no longer taking place here on a sufficient scale, so that production facilities are ageing and no new jobs are being created. On the contrary," Zander told the Funke newspapers. Germany as a business location, he added, has a cost problem that is now directly translating into industrial decline. The Gesamtmetall chief described the current situation as "the greatest crisis since the founding of the Federal Republic", a stark assessment that underlines just how seriously industry leaders view the deterioration of Germany's manufacturing base.
Zander used the interview to call for broad structural reforms to reverse the trend. Among his demands was an increase in the statutory retirement age. He described the current provision allowing retirement at 63 as "the wrong path."
On the question of longer working weeks, Zander argued that every additional hour worked contributes directly to economic output. "Every working hour that is needed and individually performed, especially in times of demographic change, is helpful. Because that means growth. And growth and working hours are very closely linked," he said.
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