Germany is losing industrial jobs at an accelerated rate – and this is no longer a localized slump, but a steady trend. According to a fresh study by EY, the industry cut employment by 2.1% over the year, with the auto industry losing about 51,500 jobs (-6.7% year-on-year). Weak demand, expensive energy, competition from Asia, US duties and the expensive transition to electric vehicles are squeezing margins and forcing concerns to optimize staffing levels. In Q2 2025, industry revenue fell 2.1% YoY to €533bn, continuing a series of quarterly declines.
Structurally, the auto sector was the hardest hit, but contractions are also evident in mechanical engineering and metals, while chemicals and pharma are showing relative stability, as evidenced by both public excerpts from the EY barometer and industry commentary in the German business press. In aggregate, German industry has shed around a quarter of a million jobs since 2019, reflecting the cumulative effect of several consecutive shocks.
Operational metrics point to a sluggish cycle, with new orders in manufacturing falling in June and annualized turnover declining; this combination usually signifies weakness over the horizon of the coming quarters, even if individual months produce technical bounces in production. At the macro level, this is combined with a fall in GDP in Q2 and a downward revision of the dynamics of the beginning of the year.
The political backdrop has become tougher, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz openly stating that the current welfare state model is “unfundable” without reforms, signaling a possible shift in budget priorities in favor of incentives for employment and industrial competitiveness. For business, this means less room for “inertia” subsidies and more pressure on productivity, R&D and export adaptation.
What this means for companies and the labor market. Automakers and their supply chain will likely face a second wave of restructuring to accommodate the EV economy and US tariff geopolitics; engineering will continue to lose low-margin positions to Asian competitors, and growth will shift to high-engineering value-added niches. For chemicals and pharma, the window of resilience is preserved through contractual models and pricing power, but energy-intensive segments remain vulnerable to spot gas and electricity disruptions. The labor market will be “two-speed”: release on the assembly line and in basic metalworking in parallel with a shortage of specialists in automation, electronics, software, battery technologies and chemical technologies – this is already evident in the structure of vacancies and industry surveys.
Conclusion. The job cuts are not the “end of industry” but a painful realignment: Germany is losing mass jobs where it is losing out on costs and is trying to retain and grow employment in capital- and knowledge-intensive segments. The key to a turnaround is cheaper energy, faster permitting procedures, prioritization of industrial investments and retraining for the electric and digital agenda. In the meantime, order and turnover statistics signal that the bottom of the cycle has not yet been passed.
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52% of employers believe that psychological problems and behavioral peculiarities hinder the employment of veterans with disabilities, according to the research of the charitable foundation “You are with us”.
In particular, when asked what peculiarities of veterans with disabilities hinder their employment, 24% of employers answered that there are no peculiarities, 52% noted psychological problems and behavioral peculiarities, 19% – alcoholism and drug use, and 5% believe that veterans with disabilities should receive assistance from the state so that there is no need to work.
Also, when asked what incentives the employer needs from the state to employ a veteran with a disability, respondents most often named: compensation for the cost of equipping workplaces for the needs of an employee with a disability; benefits for the payment of unified social tax; and subsidies for each such employed employee.
The survey was conducted in April-July 2023. In the course of the research 468 managers and owners of small, medium and large enterprises in all regions of the country and different sectors of the economy were interviewed. Surveys were conducted under conditions of anonymity by telephone questionnaire. It is noted that 18% of surveyed enterprises have more than 100 employees, 28% – up to 100 employees and 54% – up to 20 employees.
disability, employer, EMPLOYMENT, psychological problems, ветеран
Only 16% of persons with disabilities are officially employed in Ukraine, Social Policy Minister Oksana Zholnovych has said.
“The existing system of employment of persons with disabilities, based on the quota principle and the system of penalties, is ineffective. As a result, only 16% of persons with disabilities are officially employed in Ukraine, while in Europe this figure reaches more than 55%”, – the press service of the ministry said with reference to Zholnovych.
According to her, the draft law No. 5344 developed by the Ministry of Social Policy, which is already being considered in the Verkhovna Rada, is intended to create new opportunities for employment of persons with disabilities.
“First of all, the bill No. 5344 is intended to increase inclusion in society, to make the conditions equal for everyone. Because today the situation is that – mainly in private business – there is a quota for the employment of people with disabilities. And if it is not met, the private sector pays a so-called “administrative economic sanction” once a year. And there are already many cases of bypassing and non-payment, employers are afraid to hire people with disabilities because they do not know how to do it, there is no systematic support and assistance to adapt such a person in the team,” said the minister.
According to her, abolishing such practices, the bill proposes three options for employers: pay an unconditional earmarked contribution to support the employment of people with disabilities; hire people with disabilities themselves and get support; buy the product from social enterprises that have already employed 50 percent or more of people with disabilities.
“Thus, the emphasis is on ensuring decent working conditions for people with disabilities, accumulating a resource and expanding support for social enterprises,” the report says.
Another problem that the bill solves, Zholnovich said, is the impossibility of state support for entrepreneurs who hire people with disabilities but whose founders are not public organizations.
“Today under the law, support from the state is only possible if the founder is a public organization. So we remove this restriction and say: any employer who hires 50 or more people with disabilities can count on support and benefits. Socially oriented business will create new, socially protected jobs,” the Minister stressed.
Employment of people with disabilities in Ukraine can be based on two models, advisor and presidential envoy on disability issues Tetiana Lomakina said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to her, currently 2 million 2,700 people with disabilities live in Ukraine, of which only 26% are employed.
She also noted that if all employers actually fulfill the 4% quota for hiring people with disabilities provided by law, they will all be employed, but theory and practice are different.
“We talked with companies, with entrepreneurs and found two models. The first is social entrepreneurs – those who, when creating a business, put and continue putting the ideals of society higher than earnings at its foundation. You probably know such examples. For example, Kyiv’s bakery Good Bread from Good People or restaurant in Kharkiv Snow on the Head, where people with mental disabilities work. That is, people initially wanted to do good and after that they formalized it into social entrepreneurship,” Lomakina said.
The second model, as the adviser- presidential envoy on issues of disability said, is the use of international business practices by Ukrainian campaigns.
“The most important thing in such campaigns: the principles of policy, corporate standards, daily routine, the rules are the same for all employees, regardless of whether they have physical or mental disabilities. And if these rules are not respected, the same approaches are applied to all … Such a policy of equality stipulates that a person with a disability may have more needs and the company is ready to meet them, but there are rules, indicators are indicators, the result is a result. And it is in such a situation that all these fears that Ukrainian entrepreneurs talk about (about the difficulties of changing the approach to a worker with a disability, if he does something wrong or he has insufficient qualifications), are simply leveled out by the correct setting of the process of organizing work,” she said.
In addition, according to Lomakina, international campaigns pay great attention to staff training and exploring the capabilities of their employees.
“Their corporate training programs are aimed at closing weaknesses and developing strengths. I am sure that all this is possible in Ukrainian conditions, if we put a person and his qualifications in the center of attention,” she added.
According to her, practice shows that it is this approach that makes it possible to fulfill not even a 4%, but a 6% quota for the employment of people with disabilities.
Acting Head of the State Employment Service of Ukraine Valeriy Yaroshenko has said that the amount of employed population in Ukraine grew by 0.9% year-over-year.
“We are witnessing that the labor market is actually demonstrating some kind of stabilization for the first half of 2018. The growth in the employment of the population for us, according to the state statistics, occurred for the first time since 2013,” he told a news conference in. According to Yaroshenko, in comparison with the corresponding period of the previous year the number of employed population in Ukraine increased by 149,000 people (by 0.9%), and the unemployment rate is 9.7%.
At the same time, he said that 21.8% of Ukrainians work in the shadows, while last year there were 22.3% of them.
“We have 304,000 people registered with the State Employment Service today,” Yaroshenko said.
According to him, 47% of them have higher education, and in the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy and Lviv in employment centers from 85% to 90% of the unemployed people have higher education.
“As of July 27, compared with the same date in 2017, the number of unemployment assistance recipients in the country is 23,000, which is 8% less than it was in 2017,” he said.
In addition, he said that the average amount of assistance payments is growing in the country. Thus, minimum assistance under the law is UAH 544 per month, and 25% of the unemployed receive it, and the maximum is UAH 7,048, and 5% unemployed (last year 3%) receive it.
“The number of vacancies has significantly increased over the past year, we now have about 130,000 vacancies in the database,” the head of the State Employment Service said.
At the same time, he pointed out the existence of a large imbalance in the labor market between the vacancies offered and the demand of applicants.
Yaroshenko said that at the moment the employment market in Ukraine most in need of locksmiths, electric welders, turners, bakers, drivers, salesmen, cooks, waiters, nurses, tractor drivers and agricultural machinery servicemen.
“We for half a year were able to retrain and raise the qualification of 88,000 unemployed,” Yaroshenko said.
