The consulting firm Roland Berger anticipates a further intensification of the automotive crisis in Germany over the next five years. In an analysis provided to “Manager Magazin”, the company calculated that the industry workforce will shrink by approximately 200,000 people, dropping to just 490,000. This follows a peak where there were 692,000 people employed in the sector at the end of 2025.
According to Berger consultant Felix Mogge, the situation for the German auto industry could be even more severe. He notes that the industry’s massive transformation has effectively ballooned into a serious cost issue. If companies fail to react promptly to these challenges, they risk losing further market share.
The German automotive sector is currently in deep crisis. For instance, VW’s supervisory board recently decided that the company plans to eliminate around 60,000 positions by 2030. Furthermore, major suppliers and manufacturers such as Mercedes, ZF Friedrichshafen, and Bosch are also expected to reduce their German job numbers by more than 10,000 each.
Longer term, Roland Berger projects that more than five car factories in Germany will have to close by 2035 at the latest. Mogge explained that because production in countries with lower operational costs is, on average, about €2,000 cheaper than in Germany, this discrepancy will eventually become impossible to overcome.
