In the metal and electrical industry, a further decline in employment is looming. “The industry will lose even more jobs in the next five years” said Stefan Wolf, President of the Gesamtmetall association, to the “Sunday World”.
The order volume of the industry is at an average of 75 percent. “That means we cannot maintain the jobs. The revenue is not enough for that” Wolf said. Therefore, one has to tighten the screw of costs.
Currently, there are still 3.91 million employees in the metal and electrical industry. To get the economy going again, Wolf is calling for the abolition of bureaucracy, among other things: “Unnecessary laws like the Supply Chain Act or the General Data Protection Regulation must be gone in no time. We spend money endlessly, 70 billion euros in the German industry only for bureaucracy” he said. Also, a corporate tax reform, lower network charges, and capping of social security contributions at 40 percent are overdue.
“I’m missing the faith that a coalition involving the SPD will implement this. And with the Greens, it will be twice as difficult, they are incredibly ideologically driven” said Wolf, a CDU member himself. He wishes for a coalition of CDU and FDP – and warns of a strengthening of the right-wing populists: “If a new coalition does not achieve a policy change that gets us back on track, I expect that in four years we will have an extremely strong AfD with perhaps 30 or 35 percent.