More and more employees in Germany have lost their jobs due to company bankruptcy in the past four and a half years.

This is based on new figures from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), which the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) requested and which the "Bild" newspaper reported on. While 75,687 and 83,597 employees, respectively, were professionally affected by the consequences of insolvency in 2021 and 2022, the number had risen to 165,984 in 2023. In 2024, 184,494 employees in Germany lost their jobs due to company bankruptcy.

The level of insolvencies will remain similarly high in the first half of 2025, with 92,202 employees affected. This means that in just four and a half years (January 2021 to June 2025), there will be just over 600,000 unemployed people in Germany due to insolvency. BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht told the newspaper: "The bankruptcy vulture is circling the German economy, and more and more workers are losing their jobs. 185,000 employees fell victim to company bankruptcies last year alone – a sad record. And in 2025, the number is expected to rise even further." Wagenknecht described "completely absurd economic policies" as the main cause of the wave of bankruptcies and rising unemployment, arguing that the traffic light coalition bore the brunt of the blame. Wagenknecht commented: "Habeck is gone, but his policies have largely remained." The result: "Extremely high energy costs and rampant bureaucracy are choking small and medium-sized businesses and leading to the deindustrialization of our country," the BSW founder continued.