Which companies are currently hiring (and firing) the most in Germany?

Even the most experienced economists can hardly remember when the labour market was as divided as it is these days.

On the one hand, many German companies are caught up in a hiring frenzy: the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) reported 1.8 million vacancies in a recent report.

On the other hand, news of job cuts seems to come on a daily basis: most recently, Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Twitter topped the list of layoffs, many which trickled down to their European offices.

SAP has now also attracted attention with a cutback - 3,000 jobs are to be slashed at Germany's most valuable company in terms of stock market value, but only a few of them in the Bundesrepublik.

The IT bigwigs hired massive numbers of staff, especially during the pandemic - and now have to scale back. But other companies who conversely scaled back during the era of mass lockdowns are now seeing an opportunity to bring on more staff. 

Here is where the most job openings are cropping up around Germany.

Tourism and transportation

Germany’s national airline Lufthansa, which had to be saved from bankruptcy with government money, is now hiring like crazy again: between 20,000 and 30,000 new hires are expected this year alone. 

The story is similar at tourism group TUI, which plans to hire 1,500 people again after mass layoffs amid the coronavirus.

The transport and logistics sector is in particularly great need of personnel at the moment. In Frankfurt, the airport operator Fraport is also looking for skilled workers - anyone who remembers the long lines in the summer to claim delayed luggage will have an idea why.

Deutsche Bahn is advertising 24,000 jobs this year to compensate for the many delayed trains due to unusually high sick leave taken by staff. 

There are also many more employees retiring in the next few years than there are young people, ehem, coming on board. In addition, word is in the air that some of the jobs - above all the urgently sought-after train drivers - will possibly not be needed for much longer if trains can run autonomously.

READ ALSO: Night trains and faster routes: What you need to know about Deutsche Bahn's new timetable

Deutsche Post is also urgently looking for personnel. Another 10,000 jobs are set to be added soon, even though the Bonn-based company only hired 3,000 new people last year and terminated 10,000 employment contracts. Most people will have noticed why this increase is necessary, especially during the Christmas season, when letters and, above all, parcels were delivered with considerable delays. 

The current postal employees are suffering from the high workload, which in turn has led to demands for higher wages: the Verdi trade union is asking for a 15 percent pay rise.

READ ALSO: Postal delays expected around Germany as workers go on strike

Consulting companies

Among the companies that are hiring the most in 2023 are also a great many that have been growing for some time as a result of their business success and need staff for all those orders.

This includes, above all, the cohort of management consultancies such as Capgemini, KPMG, McKinsey, BCG or PwC, which have also announced this year that they will each be increasing their headcount in the four-digit range. The demand for consulting and the number of projects are high, but so is the fluctuation in the industry. Look out for openings at other consultancies such as Oliver Wyman, Bain, Roland Berger, Horvárth & Partner and Simon Kucher.

Healthcare and education sectors

There is also a structural shortage of staff in the healthcare and education sectors, including at daycare centres (Kitas). A total of 9,982 jobs alone in the health care sector are listed in the job search website Stepstone. Many bilingual schools are also eagerly in search of teachers in their native tongue, especially if they also have a high German proficiency. 

There are also vacancies in the skilled trades in many regions of Germany. In general, the term "shortage of skilled workers" is outdated, because there is an urgent need at every level, especially in production for most medium-sized companies.

Up-and-coming companies

In addition to these major trends, there are individual companies ongoing a hiring boom due to new construction projects. These include, above all, the construction group Goldbeck, a medium-sized company from Bielefeld, which built the new Tesla plant in Grünheide, Brandenburg on time. This year alone, Goldbeck is hiring 2,500 new people. 

At BioNtech, it is "only" one tenth of that, but measured against the total number of employees at the Mainz-based company, the increase is considerable. 

The chip company Intel is hiring around 3,000 people in this country this year because it is building a new plant in Magdeburg. Intel plans to create a total of around 10,000 new jobs there.

Automobile and electronics industries

While Volkswagen and BMW are among the car companies that have advertised 5,000 to 6,000 jobs each, the picture is quite different among many suppliers. 

A well-known example is Schäffler, which is cutting 1,300 jobs - 1,000 of them in Germany. This is most impacting suppliers who develop products for gasoline and diesel engines and are therefore suffering from the current boom in electric vehicles.

Bosch is also in a complex transformation phase: on the one hand, some 3,000 jobs are being created - especially for highly specialised software and electronics specialists. On the other hand, there have been recent announcements that there have been and will continue to be cutbacks in internal combustion engine departments. 

But overall there's good news: the Stuttgart-based group employs 230,000 people in its mobility division - more than ever before.