DAX companies are massively cutting jobs

The German DAX companies are cutting jobs on a large scale. According to an analysis by consultants at EY-Parthenon, the cuts in German companies are even greater than those in companies from France, Italy or Spain. This emerges from the so-called Employment Barometer 2026, for which the companies from the leading indices of the four countries were examined.

The number of employees at DAX companies worldwide fell by around 46,000 or 1.2 percent - from 3.86 million to 3.81 million. For comparison: employment at the top French companies only fell by 0.2 percent, while Italian and Spanish companies even increased by 0.9 percent each.

In Germany alone, German corporations cut their workforce by one percent. The situation is even bleaker in the workforce of DAX companies abroad: According to the evaluation, 1.3 percent of jobs were cut here.

High profits led to inefficiency

According to the information, large companies are particularly affected. According to the EY report, 69 percent of German corporations with more than 100,000 employees reduced their workforce, while 69 percent of the smaller DAX companies increased employment.

“Large companies in particular are consolidating – and Germany is particularly hard hit by this,” says Constantin Gall, EY-Parthenon Managing Partner for Western Europe. He speaks of a serious signal for the location. "The combination of weak economic activity, high costs, over-regulation, international competitive pressure and the need for structural transformation is increasingly being reflected in the employment figures of Germany's flagship companies."

The business model of controlling global activities from Germany, maintaining research and development at home and at the same time exporting abroad on a large scale from Germany is under massive pressure, said Gall. However, high profits would also have enabled inefficient structures or too many management levels. “Other nations are now often ahead when it comes to speed, innovation and cost efficiency.”

There are big differences between the industries. While some companies from the aerospace and defense industries as well as capital goods manufacturers and IT companies increased, according to the report, consumer goods companies and pharmaceutical/life sciences companies in particular were struggling with declines. There is a special feature in the automotive industry: it is downsizing primarily in Germany, while it is continuing to expand jobs abroad.