The labor costs were for a long time kept a bit low - together with the unions - to get rid of mass unemployment and the effects of the German reunification - 2

The labor costs were for a long time kept a bit low - together with the unions - to get rid of mass unemployment and the effects of the German reunification - 20 million people from a collapsed society added overnight. You can see the result during the financial crisis: employment was going up, not down. The workers and the unions actually got something back from the companies: job security in difficult times.