Despite a year of searching, previous stints at major automotive suppliers, and sending around 50 applications, German software engineer Max Peil is still looking for a job.
Trained in computer vision, a critical part of autonomous and intelligent driving systems, Peil could once expect to navigate a role at one of Germany’s industrial giants.
But years of stagnant growth in Europe’s largest economy and increasingly fierce Chinese competition are now taking their toll on young engineers like Peil.
“Usually you are rejected outright,” the 30-year-old told AFP in the western city of Frankfurt.
“I had an interview. That’s how it was with my friends, one of them sent over 60 applications.”
The “golden age” is gone –
Known around the world for cutting-edge technology and innovative design, the German car industry, supported by exports, has so far managed to avoid the drastic decline seen in countries such as Britain, France and Italy.
But Chinese carmakers such as BYD and Xpeng have eaten into German carmakers’ sales in the world’s biggest car market, leading to painful adjustments at home.
“Ten years ago we made about six million vehicles a year and now we have stabilized at about 4.4.2 million,” transport economist Thomas Puls of the IW economic institute in Cologne told AFP.
“This is good compared to other European countries, but now we have to accept that the golden age will not return.”
In a sign of the times, workers protested Thursday at Volkswagen sites across the country over reports that Germany’s biggest carmaker is considering up to 100,000 job cuts.
Total employment in the German automotive sector fell by eight percent in the five years to 2025, according to data from the Federal Employment Agency (FEA), although it rose by just over one percent overall.
German industry as a whole is struggling against what some have called “China Shock 2.0” as the country’s firms move away from low-value manufacturing and toward making more high-tech goods, often at lower prices.
This is pushing German companies out of once reliable export markets.
Total German exports were 1.56 trillion euros ($1.78 trillion) last year, down almost two percent from a 2022 peak, according to data from statistics office Destatis.
Exports to China, meanwhile, fell by almost a quarter to 81.3 billion euros over the same period.
For Peil, who last year completed an internship at tire maker and industrial supplier Continental before spinning off his auto business, the crisis meant it was clear he wasn’t going to be hired.
“Even when I started, you could see, and you would always read about it in the news, that this or that part of the business was being restructured,” he said.
“And when you see experienced colleagues going, then you know you’re unlikely to be hired for the role.”
– ‘What’s wrong?’ –
Anja Robert, who for 20 years has led the careers service at one of Germany’s top engineering schools, told AFP that even some of the best students now had to search a little.
“There are people who come to us and say, ‘Wow, I’ve written 30 applications and I’ve heard almost nothing: What’s wrong?'” said Robert, head of careers at RWTH Aachen University.
“It’s no longer the case that you just take your application to BMW and get a job.”
Skilled engineers last year had an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, according to FEA data, an increase of nearly 50 percent compared to 2022.
Electrical engineer Luca Linhsen is one of the luckiest – she started a job as a software consultant in Hamburg this month.
But she still had to endure a months-long “frustrating” job search.
“As engineers we were made to understand when we started our studies that you practically got a job even before you finished your degree,” she told AFP.
“If you want to study engineering, do it because you have a passion for technology. Don’t do it for the money or job security.”
