It couldn’t be more critical. As a result of the lack of a clear European industrial strategy and plan, bad corporate decisions, and lagging investment in industry, deindustrialisation is no longer a threat, but rather a reality in much of Europe.

Between 2008 and 2023, 2.3 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the EU, including almost a almost a million job losses in manufacturing since 2019.
This autumn, thousands more companies have threatened plant closures, reduced production and mothballed sites. The full extent of the crisis is being masked by short-term contracts and reduced hours, which could add up to as many as 4.3 million jobs. 

Restructuring is not only taking place in traditional sectors and segments but also in new industries which were hailed as the job creators of the future (e.g. both internal combustion engine sites and suppliers and electric vehicle sites and suppliers are hit). This indicates the perilous nature of the current situation – we are at a crossroads: deindustrialisation without action or powering up investment and industrial policy. No single country can do it alone. European solutions are needed.

At the same time, in acts of reckless self-sabotage, the EU is tightening its fiscal rules, cutting investment possibilities at the time we need it most (as Draghi has set out). For their part, multinationals are pursuing profit maximisation strategies based on squeezing workers and deregulation, while labour and skills shortages continue to blight industry and are highest in lower quality jobs and occupations. These old recipes will deindustrialise Europe at pace. It’s time to change the record.

Strikes and demonstrations are taking place across Europe to sound the alarm on the dramatic prospects ahead. A return to austerity is the last thing we need now. Most countries in Europe lack national industrial plans. Consequently, workers are bearing the costs of poor corporate and government planning. Rightly, workers are furious when they see that the limited public funding available to companies, going straight into the pockets of the shareholders and dividends instead of being invested in future-oriented, decarbonised production tools and technologies. 

This is why industriAll Europe has called on industrial unions across Europe to join us in Brussels on 5 February to demand a proactive European industrial policy based on investment, solidarity, quality jobs and innovation, in line with our climate commitments. 

IndustriAll Europe insists on 5 emergency actions to avoid deindustrialisation while not losing sight of where we need to get to by 2050. This demands coherence between the crisis measures and the Clean Industrial Deal.

5 immediate actions to avoid deindustrialisation

  1. Moratorium on scrapping industrial assets and forced redundancies: through the creation of SURE 2.0 to protect the workforce, and negotiated plans for every site and every worker.
  2. Reassessing fiscal rules to allow investments in social and clean transition needs
  3. Using social conditionalities in public procurement to secure demand and investment in sites
  4. Use of remaining EU recovery funds & the current EU budget (2019-24) to bridge the investment gap
  5. Action to ensure the resilience of European industries, including measures to tackle global overcapacities and unfair trade, to secure investments in Europe’s transforming industries

5 investment demands to deliver a real European Industrial Deal:

  1. A good industrial jobs compass for a Just Transition: investing in right to training
  2. An industrial plan for good industrial jobs in Europe: an investment plan with social conditionalities on all public funds and support
  3. A right to energy for good industrial jobs and good lives: investment in grids and infrastructure
  4. Democracy at work for good industrial jobs: investment in collective bargaining and worker participation
  5. Good industrial jobs guarantees along the global supply chain: investing in level playing field

You cannot transform an industry that you’ve have already lost, but together, we can build a resilient, sustainable Europe with good industrial jobs for all. This is what we want and why we are mobilising to fight for it.

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