German autos sector slashes jobs as economic woes bite

A perfect storm of industry and economic challenges have weighed on Germany's autos sector, which has shed tens of thousands of jobs over a one-year stretch to the end of June.

Over that period, Germany's autos industry, one of the European country's largest sectors, has seen job cuts of close to 7% of the workforce, or around 51,500 positions, according to new analysis from EY based on data from the German statistics office Destatis.

Overall job losses across the German industry amounted to around 114,000 in the 12 months to June 30 this year, the study noted. The figures suggest almost half the cuts were incurred by the autos sector.

“No other industrial sector has recorded such a strong reduction in employment,” the report said, according to a CNBC translation. The study flagged that 112,000 jobs have been cut in the autos sector, compared to the 2019 period preceding the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jan Brorhilker, managing partner of the assurance division at EY in Germany, said in a press release that the job reductions came in a response to the difficult situation of the German auto industry.

“Massive profit declines, overcapacities, and ailing foreign markets make a marked reduction of jobs impossible to avoid,” he said, according to a CNBC translation.

EY's report also noted that revenues in the sector pulled back 1.6% in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in the previous year. German auto giant Volkswagen, for one, reported a sharp drop in second-quarter profit and lowered its full-year guidance.

The decline in the auto sector is notably a smaller drop than the 2.1% loss in revenues that the overall German industry is facing.