Germany news: Siemens warns on AI eliminating entry-level jobs

October 20, 2026

Protesters glue themselves to road outside Rheinmetall plant

Nine protesters have glued themselves to the road outside a plant run by defense contractor Rheinmetall in Berlin's Wedding district, police said on Tuesday.

Officers have been trying since the early morning to detach the group, a police spokeswoman said.

She said as many as 90 officers had been deployed to the site, where altogether 11 protesters were gathered.

Rheinmetall is Germany's largest weapons manufacturer.

The plant in Wedding, where production began earlier this year, has been the target of several protests, with climate and social justice activist Greta Thunberg among those participating.

October 20, 2026

Young workers need to develop skills away from AI — Siemens

German industrial giant Siemens has warned against eliminating entry-level jobs that are now increasingly left to artificial intelligence (AI), saying young workers could be left without essential skills, including those needed to monitor AI-generated work.

Judith Wiese, the company's chief people and sustainability officer, said that handing certain routine tasks to AI meant that young employees would not gain hands-on experience that could benefit them later in their careers.

Wiese said it was necessary, for example, for software developers to be able to write their own code so they could critically examine the code produced by AI.

"The crucial question is always: What do I need to have done, checked and seen myself to avoid being misled by AI?" she said.

However, Wiese said AI could also help employees acquire skills more quickly, while older colleagues could learn from younger ones who had grown up using AI.

Wiese said it was still too early to say how AI would impact employment.

Noting that Siemens has some 30,000 software engineers, she said: "You can use the additional productivity either to do the same work with fewer people or to do more with the same number of employees."

Wiese also pointed out that AI was speeding up work processes, enabling the exploration of new ideas and creating projects that would not have been possible without it.

October 20, 2026

Welcome to our coverage

DW''s newsroom in Bonn bids a warm guten Tag to all its readers as a previously balmy October decides to move toward more wintry chill.

As Chancellor Merz hosts an investment conference in Berlin where developments in AI is taking center stage, industrial giant Siemens has warned that the technology does not only bring advantages.

The controversy over alleged antisemitism in Berlin's Left Party, which might well soon lead a leftist coalition in the city-state, continues, with the party itself debating what to do about a member who has expressed strong anti-Israel views.

And people in Germany are likely to face much longer waits for doctors' appointments from next year, according to an organization managing family doctors and therapists across Germany.

Read on here for more on these and other stories with a German slant.