Mounting competitive and cost pressures took their toll on corporate Germany on Thursday when General Motors of the US unveiled sweeping job cuts at Adam Opel, its largest European unit, and KarstadtQuelle, the struggling retailer, secured trade union agreement on a wide-ranging rescue package.

The announcements, which will result in the loss of thousands of jobs, highlighted the speed at which German companies are restructuring in order to cut labour costs and restore competitiveness. They followed landmark cost-cutting deals at DaimlerChrysler and Siemens in recent months, which paved the way for companies across the country to extend working hours without increasing pay.

Wolfgang Clement, Germany’s economics minister, cancelled a meeting with Nicholas Sarkozy, his French counterpart, to attend crisis talks with the Opel works council in Bochum, north-west Germany. Trade unions vowed to defend jobs and called a “day of action” next Tuesday.

“Old Europe is not Texas,” said Berthold Huber, deputy chairman of the powerful IG Metall engineering union. The KarstadtQuelle deal, meanwhile, followed overnight negotiations.

But Thomas Straubhaar, president of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics, said: “Amid the drama, there are signs of hope that the wind of change is there.” Holger Schmieding, economist at Bank of America, said German corporate restructuring “is proceeding faster than almost anywhere in core Europe, in lowering wage costs”.