According to information in the German media, the manufacturer of garden tools "Gardena" is cutting 250 jobs in Germany, some of which will be transferred to the Czech Republic. The chemical giant BASF is considering outsourcing some of its services to India, cutting the corresponding jobs in Berlin.
Both examples show that German companies continue to export some of their activities abroad, pressured by high production costs in Germany.
The crisis in the industry in Germany is not new
A year earlier, the situation was even more dramatic. In November 2025, the specialized magazine "Finanzmarktwelf" wrote that Germany is reaching the peak of the industrial crisis.
According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, around 1,300 German companies with more than 50 employees moved parts of their operations abroad between 2021 and 2023. This represents 2.2 percent of all such companies registered in Germany as of 2023. As a result of this outsourcing, over 50,000 jobs were lost in the Federal Republic. According to "Finanzmarktwelf", the most common arguments for these decisions are high energy prices in Germany, increasing bureaucracy and rising wage costs.
Many companies are also abandoning investments abroad
Meanwhile, the KfW bank is already observing another trend - the withdrawal of many companies from their foreign business. According to available data, the share of medium-sized enterprises with operations in a third country has fallen by three percentage points - from 23 to 20 percent.
"Conditions abroad have deteriorated significantly", commented KfW Chief Economist Dirk Schumacher. He cited "geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East, growing competition from China in key industries and the protectionist trade policy of the United States as reasons for this."
The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) paints a completely different picture. In response to a query from DW, its press secretary Sven Elling cited their study from the beginning of 2026. According to him, the pressure on German industry due to high costs is driving new records and that is why many companies want to invest more abroad.
For the purpose of lower costs, not expansion
So far, foreign investment has generally boosted the activity of companies, and as a result has increased employment in Germany as well. However, the share of companies that intend to invest abroad primarily to access new markets has decreased from 30% to 28%. As Volker Treier from the DIHK explained to DW, companies are investing in other countries driven by the need to reduce their costs, not because they are aiming for expansion.
At the same time, the Federal Bank data do not give reason to assume that there is an increase in the export of capital from Germany to other countries. If in the period 2017-2022 transactions for about 120 billion euros were registered on average annually, then in 2025 the amount transferred abroad by companies is below 100 billion euros.
America loses, Asia gains, Europe remains the leader
A study shows significant changes in the regions preferred by companies for their foreign investments. North America in particular is losing its attractiveness. The share of German companies planning investments in this part of the world fell by 4 percentage points - from 48 to 44 percent.
The trend is reversed in Asia: according to the DIHK, the share of industrial companies investing in China has increased from 31 to 34 percent, and in the Asia-Pacific region the increase is even 5 percent.
However, the eurozone remains the most important region - 64 percent of German companies see the single market and the common currency as a sufficiently reliable framework for their investment intentions - especially in times of geopolitical uncertainty.
Author: Dirk Kaufmann