[The European] Mass Unemployment in Germany

As bank runs become a frequent occurrence, companies start to cut costs

January 5th, 1999

Financial contagion has collapsed its tentacles upon Der Kaiser; GDP growth has finally dipped into the 

negatives, bank runs collapsing illiquid commercial banks one after the other, and the DAX 40 has fallen 

17% in the past few months. 


This has led German companies to engage in a rapid cutting of costs, descaling industry expansion projects 

and calling for mass retrenchments. This has been responded to by a large amount of unhappy labourers 

taking to the streets after being fired from their jobs.  


Director Esdar, representing German interests at the IMF, has been questioned over his significant level of 

inaction to this expanding crisis. Factory worker Raghav Kumar in an interview questioned, “What does the 

IMF even do?”, and it is hard to rebut this rhetorical question. 

Location: Hamburg, Germany

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