Under overcast skies, a scythe-wielding man dressed as the Grim Reaper led hundreds of masked protesters out of the gates of one of Germany’s oldest manufacturing sites in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg. In what local unions termed “a declaration of war”, the Volkswagen­ owned MAN Group announced this month that it would cut 9,500 roles, more than a quarter of its workforce, and consider closing production sites across Germany and Austria. After a summer in which the country’s car industry remained in suspended animation, the protesting staff at MAN’s Nuremberg truck and bus factory are among tens of thousands of employees in the strategically important sector whose jobs are in  jeopardy.

Germany’s car industry supports more than 2m domestic jobs and directly accounts for more than 5 per cent of gross domestic product. It is concentrated in the states of Bavaria, Baden­ Wiirttemberg and Lower Saxony, whose economies are likely to suffer most from car manufacturers’ attempts to slash costs. For Nuremberg, the proposed job cuts “would be a catastrophe”, said Markus Wansch, chairman of the works council at the MAN site in the city, where engines and vehicle parts have been manufactured for more than 150 years, and which still employs more than 4,000 people in a working population of  approximately 400,000.

The wider region in northern Bavaria has become the initial epicentre of the crisis, as Germany’s core industry tries to reduce personnel costs drastically in its home market. The job cuts come despite the fact that companies have enrolled millions of workers in the country’s Kurzarbeit furlough scheme.