One in three German companies expects to cut jobs in 2026, according to the autumn expectations survey presented today by the Institute of Economics, close to German employers. According to the survey, for which 2,000 companies were interviewed in October, 36% of companies have plans to cut jobs next year, while only 18% will create new positions.
The situation is, however, more serious in industry, where even 41% of respondents expect a reduction in their workforcewhile only one in seven intends to hire staff. As for production, three quarters of the companies surveyed expect to produce less or the same as in 2025.
The bad economic situation also becomes evident when analyzing investment plans: 33% of companies will invest less in 2026 than they currently do, while only 23% will spend more. Investment expectations recorded in the Institute’s (IW) surveys broke the record mark of more than five negative semesters.
“Companies are feeling the high geopolitical stress,” said IW economic expert Michael Grömling. To this are added problems with the distribution of domestic bills, such as high energy prices, the costs of social guarantees for workers and bureaucracy, according to the institute’s assessment.
“Without state reforms, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the Government’s extraordinary programs worth billions of euros (for investments) will have the expected and necessary effect”, he concluded.