This pressure exists for decades know and even before the fall of the wall. German companies are active world wide and have production on many continents. German workers always had to compete with workers in lower paid countries. VW for example produces in Brasil, China, Slowakia, Mexico, ... Still VW expanded its manufacturing in Germany. For some years there was a huge trend to go to other countries even in the Mittelstand. About ten years ago many of these companies detected that the German workforce was better educated, the infrastructure was better, production was more flexible and the productivity was higher. But more important they detected that the quality at home was also higher. So the movement than was balanced out. New factories and new production was set up. Since we have a lot of research in this area many of the new factories are top-notch and some are full of factory automation.