Profitable Plants Still Face Job Cuts as German Industry Reels from Global Pressures
Published on 06/17/2026 at 07:22 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Two thousand employees of the sensor manufacturer Sick packed the Waldkirch town hall on Tuesday for back-to-back works meetings. Their mood was tense. Management offered no concrete information about strategic direction or job security—leaving workers from the headquarters in Waldkirch and the company’s sites in Reute and Freiburg in the dark about possible restructuring or cost-saving plans.
The uncertainty at Sick is part of a broader wave of workforce reductions sweeping German manufacturing, logistics and optics. While some of the plants being downsized are highly profitable, executives cite a persistent global downturn, geopolitical strains and intensifying competition from Chinese rivals as reasons to cut.
At the Siempelkamp machinery and plant engineering group in Krefeld, management plans to eliminate 127 of 371 positions. The company’s subsidiary Pallmann in Zweibrücken is set to lose 129 of its 282 jobs. Both moves are blamed on a sustained weak global market and rising Chinese competition.
The optics giant Zeiss has announced a savings programme that is drawing sharp criticism from union representatives. The IG Metall labour union pointed out that the European Commission only approved €222 million in state aid for Zeiss in May 2026, yet the company is now pushing ahead with job cuts. While works councils won partial guarantees at sites in Aalen and Göttingen, Zeiss is holding firm on its target to save hundreds of millions of euros annually.
A similar contradiction between profitability and restructuring is visible at Thermo Fisher in Bremen. The company is considering shifting mass-spectrometer production to Brno in the Czech Republic—a move that would put nearly 100 of the 520 jobs in Bremen at risk. The works council noted that the Bremen site booked a profit of almost €300 million on revenue of roughly €700 million, calling the planned relocation unjustified.
Logistics is also under scrutiny. The DPVKOM trade union accuses the DHL hub in Leipzig of a hidden reduction in headcount. According to the union, the number of employees fell from more than 7,000 at the start of 2024 to just over 6,000 by early 2026. DHL rejects the claim, attributing the decline to natural turnover and a drop in parcel volumes that began in 2022.
For the workers at Sick, who gathered hoping for a sign that management would commit to safeguarding their sites and jobs, the wait continues. None of the major players in this restructuring wave has yet offered the kind of long-term guarantees that works councils are demanding.
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