Update from June 29, 2026: At the second works meeting of the year at the Audi plant in Ingolstadt, labor director Xavier Ros reported that 4,500 of the 6,000 jobs to be eliminated have already been implemented or contractually agreed. According to the future agreement between company management and employee representatives from March 2025, the goal should be achieved by the end of 2027.
Article from October 16, 2025: Volkswagen, Ford, Bosch, Continental and ZF Friedrichshafen are there, as are Siemens, Lufthansa, Deutsche Bank and DHL: The German economy is cutting thousands of jobs. Some companies are reacting to weak demand and pressure to transform, such as the automotive sector and industry. In the financial sector, it is more branch reductions and automation that are making jobs redundant. Logistics, in turn, has to cope with a decline in parcel volumes after the corona pandemic.
As different as the reasons are, the concerns of employees are likely to be universal. Regardless of whether a program is called job cuts or transformation: the situation stirs up fears, which in turn can have a negative impact on the working atmosphere. But is it really that bad? And can’t the whole thing be handled in a positive way?
The lawn mower doesn’t help
“The headlines often do not reflect what is happening in the company,” observes Vera Lehmann, Executive Director for HR & Transformation at the Kienbaum management consultancy. If four- to five-digit staff cuts are announced, it is often aimed more at the capital market. According to the motto: Look, we can also take tough action. That quickly sounds like the proverbial lawnmower that companies have often used to radically cut jobs in the past. This often happened across all departments, strictly based on hard key figures: X percent fewer jobs. That was once the motto, but is now out of fashion.
