Midsize companies that employ millions of workers are now shedding jobs and relocating overseas to cut costs

As panic spreads among German manufacturers, layoffs are rolling through formerly prosperous towns and villages with no living memory of a downturn.

Many Mittelstand firms are idling workers, cutting jobs or shifting production, including to China.

It’s wild how they blame it on China, while spelling out how German industry is actively choosing to do layoffs and outsource. Because, and of course this is the part they don’t say, the empire/capital class is prioritizing their personal profits over the local working class. They are, from the sound of it, actively de-industrializing their own country for short-term capital gain and blaming it on China. None of which is inevitable! They could prioritize their own industry and focus their efforts inward, but that would make the imperialists unhappy.

If European policymakers don’t take tougher measures to protect industry, “you could see a very rapid decline of the German Mittelstand,” said Noah Barkin, senior adviser at the research firm Rhodium Group.

European leaders are seeking new legal powers to hit back at China.

Of course, in typical imperialist fashion, their solution is not to reign in the exploiting classes at all, but instead to lash out at another country as the bogeyman.