As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Friday, the automotive industry saw 42,300 fewer employees at the close of the first half of 2026 compared to the previous year. This decrease represents a 5.8% reduction, an unusually high drop for a major industry employing over 200,000 people. With 691,500 workers, the sector has reached a new low point in its employment figures, a level not seen since 2005. Despite this decline, the automotive sector remains the second-largest industrial industry by employee count, trailing only the mechanical engineering sector, which employed 905,900 people in the first six months of 2026.
For context, total manufacturing employment stood at 5.29 million workers, marking a decrease of 144,100, or 2.7%, over the past year.
Within the automotive sector, both car manufacturers and parts/accessory suppliers shed jobs. However, job numbers increased among suppliers of car bodies, structures, and trailers by the end of the first half of 2026. In the core manufacturing of passenger cars and engines, employment dropped by 6.1% year-over-year, totaling 429,200 employees. The automotive parts and accessories supply sector experienced a steeper job loss of 7.6%, declining to 219,500. Conversely, the smaller sub-sector specializing in car bodies, structures, and trailers saw employment rise by 10.0%, reaching 42,800. Note that this evaluation did not include other suppliers outside the automotive industry, such as those involved in tire manufacturing and remanufacturing.
Job shedding was also evident across other large industrial sectors. In the production of metal products, employment fell by 3.8% within a year, settling at 471,700 by the end of the first semester. Employment in metal production and processing also decreased by 3.7% in the same period, reaching 207,200. Higher than the average rate of decline were observed in the chemical industry (-3.6% to 312,000) and in the manufacturing of electrical equipment (-3.4% to 374,500).
The mechanical engineering sector’s employment declined by 2.7% over the last year-a decrease matching the overall industrial average, where about 905,900 people were employed by the end of the first half of 2026. Other sectors saw lower than average employment declines; these included the plastics industry (-2.2% to 311,800), the food industry (-1.3% to 503,400), and the production of data processing, electronic, and optical goods (-1.0% to 307,100).
