The bottom is approaching — depressing data on the German economy has been published

The German industry has lost about half a million jobs since 2019. This is evidenced by the data of the IFO Research Institute.

It is noted that compared to the beginning of 2019, by the end of 2025, the number of people employed in industry has decreased by 496 thousand people. According to IFO, since 2019, automobile companies have eliminated 123.5 thousand jobs, metalworking enterprises — 115.6 thousand, machine—building plants - 64.5 thousand. According to Joachim Ragnitz, head of the Dresden branch of the Institute, these three sectors account for about 60% of all industry cuts.

The IFO clarified that 243 thousand people who were hired through temporary employment agencies lost their jobs in Germany. Many of these people worked in industry. At the same time, according to the institute, in the non-manufacturing sector of Germany, mainly in healthcare, public administration and social services, there is a rapid increase in the number of jobs: in the period from the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2025, 2.2 million jobs appeared in this sector. Ragnitz believes that this trend may lead to a slowdown in economic growth in Germany.

In addition, it became known that the volume of investments in the German economy since the beginning of 2020 has been hundreds of billions of euros below the potential level. According to the Institute of German Economics (Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, IW), during this period, German companies invested about 470 billion euros less than could be expected based on historical economic trends. This is almost 12% lower than the estimated volume of private investment. At the same time, public investments exceeded the expected level by about 50 billion euros. Taking into account these changes, the total investment losses are estimated at 420 billion euros.

Among the factors holding back investments in Germany, experts call high energy and labor costs, as well as bureaucratic barriers. Geopolitics and the breakdown of relations with Russia play an important role.