German Fortune 500 companies have announced over 60,000 layoffs this year, but the biggest employee cull is still to come #NewsGerman

German companies in the Fortune 500 Europe have announced over 60,000 layoffs this year, in a sign of the country’s ongoing economic malaise that has left manufacturers reeling.

Major German employers, including Bosch, Thyssenkrupp, Deutsche Bahn, and Siemens, have this year announced plans to lay off thousands of workers in a bid to combat falling profits following a rocky post-COVID economic landscape.

The companies that make up the backbone of Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, have struggled to combat oppressive macroeconomic headwinds tied to rising energy prices and falling external demand, a particular issue in Germany’s export-dependent economy. The country is set for its second consecutive year of negative economic growth in 2024.

Germany’s production PMI, a survey of manufacturing bosses, indicates the sector has been in recession since the start of 2022. That was when inflationary pressures from rising energy prices began to hit producers’ bottom lines. Manufacturing’s share of GDP in Germany is much larger than that of other European countries like the U.K. and France, exacerbating the impact.

“In a world where China has become the “new Germany” – at least in manufacturing – Germany’s old macro business model of cheap energy and easily accessible large export markets is no longer working,” Carsten Brzeski, head of global macro for ING, wrote in a note.

Fortune’s analysis found that German companies in the Fortune 500 Europe have announced plans to lay off over 60,000 workers, the majority of whom come from the country’s manufacturing sector. The figures rely on reported announcements this year and could be higher.

Earlier in November, German industrialist and autos supplier Bosch said it planned to lay off 7,000 employees as the company warned of a “difficult economic situation.” This followed an October announcement that the group would trim its workforce by 5,500 after Bosch’s chairman Stefan Hartung warned it wouldn’t hit its financial targets for 2024.

Thousands more workers saw their weekly working hours reduced from 38-40 hours to 35 hours for less pay, effectively giving them an unwanted four-day week. The company is one of Germany’s largest employers.

Later that month, the engineering and steel-producing group Thyssenkrupp said it would lay off 11,000 steel workers, representing 40% of workers in that division. The company cited the familiar foe of cheap Chinese imports as motivation for the headcount reduction.

Truck maker Daimler said in August that it would introduce a job freeze and reduce employees’ working hours, mainly affecting its German plants.

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