Germany’s once-dominant automotive sector is facing its most profound reckoning in decades, shedding over 52,000 jobs — a 6.7% decline — in the past year alone, according to fresh data released by Destatis. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019, the broader industrial sector has cut a total of 245,000 positions, with nearly half of those losses concentrated in the auto industry, according to estimates by the auditing and consulting firm EY.