The iconic German toymaker Playmobil is ceasing all figure production in its home country, with the closure of its Dietenhofen plant in Bavaria marking the end of an era for one of Germany’s best-known manufacturing brands.
The final shift ended this week, with remaining employees placed on paid leave ahead of the official shutdown at the end of June.
The Horst Brandstätter Group, owner of the Playmobil brand, confirmed that production of the plastic figures is being consolidated at existing facilities in Malta and the Czech Republic.
Around 350 jobs are affected at the Dietenhofen site, which specialised in the manufacture of the popular toys.
The company cited sharply rising production costs in Germany as the decisive factor, explicitly naming high energy prices alongside elevated wages and ancillary labour costs.
The decision represents yet another symbolic blow to German manufacturing.
Unions have called Playmobil’s move a “catastrophe” for the region, while business groups note it as the latest example of a once-thriving mid-sized enterprise forced to relocate.
Administrative and logistical functions will remain in Germany, but the actual production of Playmobil figures will now take place entirely outside the country that created it.
Playmobil, long marketed as a proudly “Made in Germany” product, joins a growing list of companies shifting operations abroad in search of lower costs.
The company has faced declining sales and financial pressure in recent years, but management made clear that the cost environment in Germany had become unsustainable for labour-intensive plastic injection moulding.
Germany’s household electricity prices remain among the highest in the world, currently the fifth most expensive globally and the second highest among major industrial nations.
Energy-intensive processes have been particularly exposed since the 2022 energy crisis, despite partial government relief schemes.
The closure comes amid ongoing warnings from German industry about structural competitiveness problems.
High energy costs, driven by the country’s rapid shift away from nuclear and coal without sufficient baseload alternatives, combined with bureaucracy and wage pressures, are accelerating what some economists describe as creeping deindustrialisation.
