Despite the German administration’s substantial investments in military expansion, job losses continue to sweep across essential sectors, such as automotive, chemicals, steel, among others. Recently, this trend has also begun to affect the services industry. Unions play a significant role in managing these redundancies, ensuring a smooth transition and suppressing any initial opposition. Creditreform, a credit agency, reports a noticeable surge in corporate bankruptcies within Germany, especially impacting the services sector comprising hospitality and catering. Bankruptcies numbered 2,220 in retail and 940 in manufacturing, leading to the loss of jobs for around 141,000 individuals. A number of renowned firms, including Galeria, Esprit, Sinn, and Gerry Weber, have declared insolvency, an outcome driven by reduced purchasing power, increasing costs and the pandemic’s persistent aftermath.
The labor market is currently experiencing sluggishness, having not gathered the necessary momentum required to steer towards recovery. Therefore, it is projected that unemployment rates will experience further growth during the upcoming summer months. The underemployment figures, comprising individuals in short-term disability or labor programs, were appreciably higher. Of the nearly 3 million officially unemployed people, less than 1 million received unemployment benefits. This segment also includes a substantial number of individuals who are employed but earn insufficient income to support their livelihood. While the increase in unemployment numbers remains relatively low, essential industries experience sweeping layoffs.
In the automotive sector, including its ancillary industries, a drastic decrease in employee count is noted, contradicting the rising sales figures. Industry analyst Ferdinand Dudenhöffer predicts a drastic drop to roughly 500,000 employees in the sector by the year 2030.
Large scale layoffs are on the horizon for car makers like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, and Porsche. On the heels of shutting down its Saarlouis factory, Ford is now streamlining its principal plant in Cologne. The situation mirrors in the supplier industry as prominent entities, such as Bosch, ZF, Schaeffler and Continental are collectively letting go of thousands of workers. Smaller businesses, which maintain a workforce in the hundreds, are increasingly filing for insolvency.
Within the steel industry, ArcelorMittal, following Thyssenkrupp’s suit, has halted plans to manufacture ‘green’ steel domestically. Despite the government’s subsidy commitment of over a billion euros, the anticipated hydrogen-powered blast furnaces in Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt will not see the light of day.
Contrastingly, Germany’s armaments sector is experiencing an unprecedented surge. The country’s leading arms-manufacturing firms register substantial orders and flourishing profits. This rise in profitability is further underscored by the surging share prices of the country’s largest arms company, further bolstered by new war credits.
This juxtaposition of job losses impacting hundreds of thousands of people and families, regions becoming increasingly reliant on these industries, and the redirecting of substantial resources toward militarization and destruction, is indicative of a critically flawed social structure. Under the prevailing circumstances, safeguarding employment becomes an inseparable aspect of the struggle against warfare and capitalism.
It necessitates a decisive break away from unions, which have slowly transformed into corporate accomplices. The onus of defending jobs and livelihoods now falls on independent workers led committees, fostering connections among global workers community.
This profound shift calls for a socialist viewpoint and the establishment of a party that would unify the international labor force, creating solidarity rather than division through wars.