
Direct investments in Central and Eastern European acceding countries: Repercussions for the German labor market?
In the light of the high unemployment in the Germany we ask whether German FDI to the CEEC is motivated mainly by cost differentials and takes the form of vertical investment which leads to an increased pressure on blue collar jobs in Germany. The analysis shows that German direct investment abroad is motivated both by reasons of market access and by cost differentials. About 60 % of all German FDI is directed toward the service sector. Here, no negative impact on the German labour market is to be expected. About 40 % of total German FDI may partly be motivated by cost advantages and lead to outsourcing. In the three most important CEEC recipient countries (Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary) about half of all FDI is directed toward the manufacturing industries (chemical industry and automobile industry in particular). This supports the hypothesis that vertical investment to these CEECs has been directed towards sectors that display cost advantages (i.e. low labour costs) which results in a decrease of the number of blue collar jobs and their respectives wages.