Germany has been living a transformation silent but very deep. The country that saw the birth of the industrial miracle of the automobile is seeing something similar again, but from a perspective completely different: rearmament, which until recently was a political taboo and a social discomfort, has become a great industrial and labor accelerator.
War as a driving force. The country, pushed by the russian invasion of Ukraine and the feeling that the American umbrella is already It’s not so automatic As before, it has been shifting its center of gravity towards defense with a mix of strategic urgency and productive ambition.
And that mutation is measured in something very specific: employment, factories, supply chains and a demand that is no longer described as temporary, but as a new normal that promises to last for years, with orders that come in like a wave and companies that prepare to produce at scale, with war economy rhythms without the need to call it that.
Mass hiring. German defense contractors have entered into a veritable hiring feverincreasing its workforce by nearly a third in just four years. The data provided by a representative group of large companies and start-ups shows a jump from around 63,000 workers in 2021 to almost 83,000 today Within its defense-focused divisions, a 30% growth which reflects the extent to which the industry is expanding at real speed.
I remembered the financial times that, although these figures do not cover the entire sector and there are large companies that did not participate, the portrait is enough to understand the direction of the country: Germany not only buys more weapons, but is rearming its industrial muscle to manufacture, sustain and modernize them, with a labor market that is beginning to reorganize itself around this new priority.
Rheinmetall Panther KF51
The budget turn. The great fuel for this expansion is public money converted into contracts. Since 2022, the German Ministry of Defense has signed arms deals worth of 207,000 million eurosand last year alone it concentrated 83,000 million, a figure that contrasts with the 23,000 million in 2021 and that summarizes the break with the previous stage.
The most significant thing is that the trend does not aim to stop: Chancellor Merz, in office since May, has relaxed the strict debt rules to allow the level of spending needed in defense, a message that, beyond politics, works as an industrial signal: there will be stable demand, continuity and visibility, just what companies need to invest, expand capacity, hire and plan for the long term without fear that everything will freeze with the next electoral cycle.
The real size of the sector. Even with this boom, the German defense industry remains a relatively modest player in terms of employment when compared to the country’s historical giant: the automobile. The Ministry of Economy itself cited around 105,000 jobs direct in defense in 2022, and although the figure will have risen since then, it remains far from the approximately 700,000 workers in the automotive sector, today hit by layoffscompetitive pressure and technological transition.
This comparison is important because it cuts to the root a repeated idea: that rearmament can “replace” the car as a great work cushion. Defense can grow a lot, even draw on industry and attract talent, but due to volume it does not seem capable of absorbing the size in the short term. of the engine crisisat least not quickly or massively.
Airbus and Reinmetall. Within the employment map, Airbus stands out as the largest employer, with around 38,000 people working in defense worldwide and just over half in Germany, manufacturing key pieces of European military architecture such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and the transport plane A400M.
right behind Rheinmetall appearswhich has become the most visible symbol of the boom: the producer of tanks, artillery and ammunition has grown from about 15,400 employees in 2021 at 23,500 todaythe greatest absolute leap among the companies analyzed, and its CEO, Armin Papperger, has even projected a target of 70,000 employees in three years. In parallel, Rheinmetall has begun to experience something that in Germany is a cultural indicator: social attractiveness. He speaks of hundreds of thousands of applications in a single year, as if defense had stopped being a dark or secondary sector to suddenly become a bet for the future for engineers, technicians and industrial profiles.
Military startups. The big relative surprise is in the new scene of military start-upsyoung companies focused on surveillance systems or weapons not always publicly detailed, that are raising hundreds of millions in financing and growing at a rate almost unthinkable a decade ago.
The most striking case It’s Helsing.which makes armed drones and whose workforce has grown 18-fold in four years after evolving from an artificial intelligence software approach to hardware productiona leap that involves going from selling algorithms to build real objects with parts, assembly lines, logistics and maintenance. This movement is, in itself, a statement: European defense no longer wants to depend only on digital innovation, it wants to convert innovation in physical and deployable systemsand for that you need companies capable of manufacturing and scaling, not just programming.
The State accelerates. From within the sector, the discourse is one of sustained takeoff. The BDSV employers’ association, in the voice of Hans Christoph Atzpodien, insists that growth will accelerate because Germany has streamlined processes purchase and has given more visibility on future demand, which allows capacity planning with less uncertainty. The phrase is almost industrially literal: now everything is placed so that large orders “arrive at the doors” of manufacturers.
If you want and how do we countthe scenario describes a change of era: for years Europe talked about spending more on defense, but it did so with administrative slowness, political doubts and eternal programs; now the feeling is that the system is being reconfigured to buy and produce urgently, because the threat is perceived to be close and the margin for improvisation has been exhausted.
The great temptation: “steal” the car. In the midst of the engine crisis, many arms producers have shown interest in hiring automotive workersand the movement makes sense: Germany has an immense pool of engineers, specialized operators, precision suppliers and an advanced manufacturing culture. However, the numbers reveal that, for now, the transfer is more symbolic than massive: Hensoldt, manufacturer of radars and sensorssays it has hired about 100 people from the car industry this year, and Arx Roboticsfocused on unmanned ground vehicles and with about 140 employees, has hired about 15.
Helsingfor its part, affirms that it does constantlyalthough without specific figures. The pattern therefore exists, but it is not the total lifeline that some imagine, because the scale of the defense cannot yet swallow the dimension of the automotive problemno matter how much the country wants to redirect talent towards what it now considers strategic.
A chain that is reorganized. Another interesting point about this shift is that it is not limited to arms companies: it is beginning to attract large suppliers and the star profiles of the technological world. Helsing, for example, has signed Michael Schwekutschformer vice president of engineering at Tesla, and has begun collaborate with Schaeffler to ensure that the supply chain can keep up with growth.
There you see the real change: when the defense begins to compete for the same brains and the same parts that previously powered the car, it stops being a niche and becomes an industrial axis. Atzpodien celebrates it as proof of a strong and dynamic German productive base, but also introduces a warning that sounds almost like cold realism: the defense can absorb part of the blow and redirect resources, but can’t solve alone all the problems of the automotive network.
The “new” Germany. In short, the German scenario is not just about companies hiring, but about a country rediscovering its place. Germany, which for decades built its economic self-esteem around civil export and automobileis reordering priorities towards security and strategic autonomyand that translates in factoriessalaries, applied innovation and a new type of industrial prestige: that of producing military systems that Europe considers essential.
From that perspective, rearmament is not just a budget, it is a cultural mutationbecause what is encouraged, studied, financed and considered “future” changes. And although the sector still does not have the size to replace automotivedoes seem big enough to rewrite part of the German industrial map over the next decade, with the background noise of a Europe that has decided, or so it seems, that its security cannot depend solely on promises.
Image | Rheinmetall NIOA Munitions, Mercedes B., Rheinmetall Defense, RawPixel, 7th Army Training Command
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