The number of German business insolvencies registered in the first half of the year jumped 12.2% from a year earlier, the statistics office said on Thursday, highlighting the challenges for Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government in its efforts to revive economic growth, Reuters reported. Final results showed that local courts registered a total of 12,009 insolvencies in the first six months of 2025.

German industrial production rebounded in July despite a further plunge in exports to the U.S., indicating the sector’s resilience in the face of tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. Industrial output in Europe’s largest economy jumped 1.3% on month, the first rise since March, while June’s data was also revised upward to a decline of just 0.1% from the 1.9% slump originally reported, according to Germany’s statistics agency Destatis on Monday.

Workers at Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe voted to approve a sweeping restructuring plan, setting the stage for the revival of Germany's largest steelmaker, contingent on Thyssenkrupp AG's commitment to finance the initiative, Reuters reported. The IG Metall union said on Friday that 77% of participating members supported the plan, with 62% turnout in the vote held from July 21 to September 4. The restructuring programme includes cuts to jobs, working hours, and bonus payments, as well as site closures, but avoids forced redundancies until 2030.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered Germany’s support for Switzerland in its bid to reduce the punishingly high trade levy US President Donald Trump imposed on the export-dependent nation last month, Bloomberg News reported. The 39% tariff Trump slapped on Switzerland is the highest for any developed country and officials in Bern are trying to persuade his administration to accept a new offer by October.

The number of unemployed people in Germany has topped three million for the first time in a decade, labour office figures showed on Friday, raising the stakes for the government's huge investment plans to deliver quick results, Reuters reported. A total of 3.02 million people were unemployed in August in seasonally unadjusted terms, with an increase of 46,000 in the number of people out of work from the previous month. "In Germany, three million is not just a number.

German banks blocked PayPal payments totalling more than 10 billion euros ($11.7 billion) over fraud concerns, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Wednesday. The payments were halted on Monday after lenders flagged millions of suspicious direct debits from PayPal that appeared last week, the newspaper said. A PayPal spokesperson said a temporary service interruption had affected "certain transactions from our banking partners and potentially their customers", but that the issue had now been resolved.

Germany’s economic output shrank by more than initially estimated in the second quarter, with industry faring worse than expected as U.S. tariffs hurt exports, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product in Europe’s largest economy fell 0.3% on quarter in the three months to the end of June, according to fresh estimates, a sharper rate than the 0.1% decline initially estimated made last month, statistics agency Destatis said. That performance offset much of the 0.3% increase in GDP in the first quarter. Exports of goods fell 0.6% in the quarter as U.S.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG is working on a debut significant risk transfer tied to billions of dollars of U.S. commercial real estate loans, Bloomberg News reported. The Garching-based bank is sounding out investors about the potential transaction. In June, PBB said it would discontinue its US business completely and planned to wind down, securitize or sell a portfolio of about €4.1 billion of US commercial real estate loans. Earlier this month it booked €314 million in charges linked to its decision to exit the U.S.

German banks’ asset quality will come under pressure from rising corporate insolvencies in the coming months amid a challenging macroeconomic environment and persistent high interest rates, Fitch Ratings says. Fitch expects banks’ exposure to vulnerable sectors and anaemic economic growth to result in heightened credit losses in corporate and SME loan portfolios.

Germany’s goods exports to the U.S. slid further in June, as the impact of tariffs on the country’s export-oriented economy continued to bite, while industrial production also took an unexpectedly strong hit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Exports from Europe’s largest economy to the U.S. slid 2.1% to 11.8 billion euros ($13.76 billion), the third consecutive monthly decrease to the lowest value since February 2022, according to adjusted figures published by Germany’s statistics agency Destatis on Thursday. They were 8.4% lower than the same month last year.