A wave of industrial job cuts is setting a grim tone in the early stages of Germany’s election campaign, with politicians describing the economic conditions as the most challenging they have ever faced for a federal vote.
In the month since the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unhappy three-way coalition paved the way for a snap vote in February, some of the country’s biggest employers have announced planned job losses, including 11,000 at steelmaker Thyssenkrupp, 3,800 at Bosch, the world’s largest car parts maker, 2,800 at its rival Schaeffler and 2,900 at Ford.
“I have rarely experienced a context as difficult as the one right now,” said Achim Post, a member of the Bundestag for Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD) in North Rhine-Westphalia, a key industrial region that has been hit by job cut announcements.
Pointing to a string of industrial cities across the country, Post said: “Every family that works in Duisburg, or in Stuttgart, or Leverkusen . . . is looking at itself and asking: ‘will I know at Christmas whether I still have a job next year?’”
German job cuts darken mood of election campaign https://t.co/1HDTPHhwoZ
— FT Data (@ftdata) December 3, 2024
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