Business

Volkswagen has built one of the largest workforces in the global auto industry. At nearly 630,000 people — 680,000 if you count joint ventures in China — VW employs around 60% more workers than Toyota, 140% more than Stellantis and nearly 240% more than Ford. That headcount was once a sign of Germany's industrial might and VW's huge profits. Now, it's become a massive burden, one that's forcing the company to make painful job cuts to survive against agile Chinese competitors. After already trimming thousands of positions last year as profits came under pressure, Volkswagen is now preparing to slash up to 100,000 jobs worldwide, including tens of thousands in Germany. It also wants to close four German factories. These cuts include VW luxury brands like Porsche and Audi. Other German au...

Has the fragile US-Iran ceasefire collapsed? The Iran war has reignited after Tehran struck at least three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, according to US and maritime officials. The attacks, which targeted a Saudi oil tanker and a Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, prompted the United States to revoke the temporary sanctions waiver on Iranian oil exports. This major concession in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreed by the US and Iran last month allowed Tehran to restart oil exports after its tankers were halted by a US Navy blockade. In further retaliation, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Wednesday it had struck more than 80 targets in Iran, including air defense systems, radars and over 60 small boats used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Gua...

German companies are continuing to move abroad — and that applies to businesses of every size. According to press reports, Gardena, the Ulm-based garden tools specialist, plans to cut 250 jobs in Germanyand partially relocate operations to the Czech Republic. That amounts to a reduction of 10% of its domestic workforce. Major global players such as BASF are also continuing to invest abroad. Earlier this year, it become known that the chemical company intends to relocate service positions to India, with many jobs at its Berlin site coming under particular pressure. Relocations and job losses Last year, the situation was described in even more dramatic terms. "Germany's industrial crisis is running at full speed," wrote the online magazine Finanzmarktwelt in November, citing figures from...

When Bernd Wagner walks through his new company's headquarters, he can barely contain his enthusiasm. He starts rattling off figures like "seven times as much steel as was used to build the Eiffel Tower" or "cables stretching all the way to Naples." Wagner is responsible for cloud business and sales at Schwarz Digits. All that steel and cabling has gone into the new head office, which will officially open on July 21, 2026. 'We are here to say,' says Bernd Wagner, head of sales and cloud business at Schwarz DigitsImage: Nicolas Martin/DW The campus, designed for 3,500 employees and complete with a daycare center, restaurant and fitness facilities, is reminiscent of the headquarters of Amazon, Apple, or Google. Perched on a hillside, five multi-story curved glass buildings in a honeycomb...

Digital, or cryptocurrencies, were supposed to revolutionize the way we pay for goods and services. Yet in 2026, when you walk into a store or buy something online, you still reach for cash or your card. Bitcoin's volatility and complexity have kept it from becoming everyday money. That is where the European Central Bank (ECB) steps in with plans for a stable digital currency. For consumers, the digital euro promises a simple way to make secure payments — in shops, online or peer‑to‑peer — backed directly by Europe's central bank. Yet the push for a digital euro isn't just a digital upgrade. It's increasingly become a geopolitical necessity.A pilot of the digital euro could begin next year, with a full rollout in 2029Image: Daniel Kalker/picture alliance Currency sovereignty in a shif...

The United States on Wednesday decided not to renew the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), in its current form, US trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement "The United States will continue to engage with Mexico and Canada to address the agreement's shortcomings and our trade deficits with these countries," Greer said. Although it wasn't extended by the Wednesday deadline, the deal remains in force for another 10 years and will now be reviewed annually, which sets up the possibility of protracted and complicated negotiations over everything from tariffs to trade rules governing specific sectors. The on-again, off-again negotiations are likely to cause more uncertainty for US automakers and farmers who depend on stable and interconnected supply chains underpinned by the de...

Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week announced a crackdown on the high number of sick days the country takes. The move follows research published in January by the Berlin-based IGES Institute, showing that German workers now take an average of 19.5 working days as sick leave per year. That figure is a noticeable increase from about 13 days in 2018. As part of Merz's proposals, from January next year, workers will no longer be able to get a sick note over the phone. They must visit a doctor in person and on the first day of illness.  The measure adds a layer of difficulty to taking time off work due to sickness.  Merz said the high number of absences is hurting Germany’s economy, adding that, “We can no longer afford this competitive disadvantage caused by long absences from...

Hannes Loth drives an electric car and wants to install wind turbines in his municipality.  Loth, Germany's first full-time mayor from the far-right, populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), is promoting the expansion of renewable energy — even though it runs counter to his party's platform. The farmer has been mayor of Raguhn-Jeßnitz since 2023 and has ambitious plans. In the town of around 8,600 people in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, he wants to build a battery storage facility with a substation, and six new wind turbines. Tilo Hörtzsch, a local councilor for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Raguhn-Jeßnitz, confirmed the plans. "Mr. Loth isn't someone who brings ideology into everything," the owner of a local electrical engineering company told DW. "We...

Access to artificial intelligence (AI) models is not only a matter of economic autonomy but also of national security. For any doubters, this was made clear in mid-June when Anthropic announced that, on US government orders, it would deny all foreign users access to its top AI software, citing national security concerns. These AI models — Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — are considered particularly effective at identifying vulnerabilities in software. Germany, for one, must urgently catch up in artificial intelligence, says German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. In the current situation, it is essential to help shape technological innovation, he said. Otherwise, "you could very quickly end up among the victims," he added, according to the German news agency dpa. A Franco-German AI ...

Silicon Valley executives and global policymakers are scratching their heads at US President Donald Trump's latest crackdown on Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) company behind the powerful Claude models. Just days after the release of its most powerful upgrades — Claude Fable 5 and the even more powerful Mythos 5 — the Trump administration imposed strict export controls on Anthropic's tools on June 12. Washington cited national security risks from so-called jailbreaking — clever prompts that bypass AI safety rules — which the San Francisco-based tech giant said were minor, overblown and also present in rival AI platforms. Yet with the US Commerce Department effectively banning foreign nationals worldwide from using the models, including Anthropic's own staff, the firm had lit...