There have been numerous fake forecasts for Germany and Europe in 2021, as allegedly becoming a year of strong post-pandemic recovery. For the labor market, however, it is almost certain in the absence of a real-economic crash program that several hundred thousand jobs will be eliminated, for instance, in Germany.
The impending wave of insolvencies among productive Mittelstand companies will send up to several hundred thousand workers home, with not much perspective of finding another job, given that for the Green Deal, other qualifications are required. Automobile companies, and especially for supply industries, will be hit hard by the abrupt shift to e-mobility: A survey carried out for the German government in January 2020 already warned against the loss of half of the automobile industry’s 800,000 jobs over the next years with production of combustion engines phased out in favor of new e-motors. Most of these latter may even be produced by German automakers like Daimler in China, with no jobs included for Germans in Germany.
