Last night via Channel One (ARD, German public TV), they ran a live chat forum with "Hard But Fair". Topic? There's been some layoffs going on around German major companies. The biggest one seen in the past couple of months involved Siemens (3,300 to be laid off).
Workers can't understand this. Political folks are hyped up and responding that Siemens is making billions in profit, so they should just keep the people on the payroll.
In the Siemens case, what happened? At some point between ten and twenty years ago....Siemens hyped up their power and gas turbine industry. They had technology in their corner and the name-brand helped. Then came competition from across the globe eventually. Sales are reported to be lagging. So they have too many people in this turbine industry.
But there is other story, which the forum tended to avoid and German news media folks really don't want to discuss much in front of the public. Not only is Siemens in a tough place....but it's chief competition...GE (of the US)....is in a rough place too.
Reason? There are some people and governments, which pressed forward on renewable energy instead of large fossil-fuel plants powered by the varieties of turbines they sell. Who are these people? Well....the German public. The entire focus of the German news media is that fossil-fuel is 'bad' and renewable energy is 'good'. Never once did they stand there and note that there are tens of thousands of German jobs attached to the gas turbine industry.
How big a hit will this group of 3,300 Siemens folks be? You'd mostly say it's not a big deal but they were fairly specialized and I would have some doubts that the bulk of these people will find work within a year after they are laid off.
The beginning of a trend? If you watched the public forum last night....you might be thinking this. The ability of the political folks to react or help? Zero....they were the ones focused on dumping fossil-fuel operations and saving the world...not German jobs.
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