Germany’s largest industrial union, IG Metall, reached a deal for a 4.3 percent pay increase with employers just before dawn yesterday, believed to be the largest annual increase for the sector in more than a decade.
The wage deal, which is more than double Germany’s inflation rate of about 2 percent, will give about 3.6 million engineering workers a 4.3 percent pay increase for 12 months from May 1 and set a standard for other unions in Europe’s largest economy.
The agreement for the sector at the heart of the German economy came after all-night negotiations. Officials from the two sides confirmed the breakthrough at a news conference.
The talks between the giant union and officials representing Germany’s leading manufacturing sector that includes carmaking powerhouses such as Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW were closely followed across Europe, which is battling to overcome a sovereign debt crisis exacerbated by imbalances linked to Germany’s low wage growth.
The deal will bring to an end a series of partial walk-outs and warning strikes across the country by the union to press their demands for a 6.5 percent pay raise. Employers had previously offered a pay increase of just under 2.6 percent.
Union officials had threatened a full-fledged strike in the weeks ahead, which would have harmed the sector that is thriving thanks to solid economic growth in Germany and the country’s coveted export goods.
Labor unions in Germany this year are getting above-average pay increases after a decade of wage deals that even failed to keep pace with the country’s inflation rate.
The moderate deals had improved the country’s competitiveness and helped the unemployment rate fall to a two-decade low, but opened gaps with other eurozone countries that had exacerbated imbalances in the euro bloc.
German government leaders have even taken the unusual step of intervening indirectly in wage talks this year, urging employers to give workers better deals after they had accepted modest increases over the last decade.
“We have hit the upper limit of what the companies can deal with,” said Rainer Dulger, who led employers through five rounds of talks totaling 37 hours in recent weeks.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day