1) Mindset and Culture. The idea of entrepreneurship, hard work and reward for risk is becoming completely alien to Germans. New technologies and high growth sectors are almost exclusively perceived in terms of their risks and downsides. Security, reliance on the government for problem solving and tall poppy syndrome are paramount.
2) Overly complex civic systems. Germans always were famous for their bureaucracy. But government interference in the most minute details of running a business, endless red tape and micro regulations have made it largely impossible to be competitive on the international stage.
3) Poor Work Ethic. What? The Germans? Aren’t they known to be the hard working ones? Well - somehow, our trains are also known to be the punctual ones. These cliches might have been true during the “Wirtschaftswunder” - but today, Germans work the fewest hours of any OECD country.
4) Climate Focus. Germany’s government is focused on a largely ideologically driven understanding of climate change prevention. It’s not just that Russian gas is no longer available - in addition all nuclear power plants were shut off. Climate regulation and taxation also adds to rising energy prices and production costs.
5) Worker Rights: Germany has very high levels of worker protections, making it hard to scale workforces up and down and near impossible to dismiss employees for performance reasons.
6) High Taxes. Germany has some of the highest corporation and personal income taxes in the developed world. And while e.g. Scandinavian countries have even higher taxes, in Germany it doesn’t feel like you’re getting something of equal value back from the state. This is of course highly subjective.
7) Few Future Industries. Germany’s industry has focused on gas powered mobility and advanced machine building - and has become a world leader in many of these areas. It has, however, very few software, AI, or other companies that make up the bulk of e.g. the US economic growth.
There’s probably many more - but this might paint a picture from the inside.
4. Climate change-related policy that doesn’t make sense is the new law about heating systems, not nuclear power shutdown. Nuclear power in Europe is risky and very expensive, not least because our supply chain is not secure. Neither African, not Russian/Kazakh uranium are a good option. We still have room for more renewables and they are good.
5. That’s not a bad thing, just very un-American. I have seen plenty of layoffs in IT sector here, it’s not that hard to do it. However overhiring to do a layoff in one year is also the most stupid thing that happened in the last 5 years. I doubt that having too much flexibility does help the business. Maybe managers need to be smarter a bit and use available resources more wisely instead.