"The volatility of the global economy will continue to accompany us in 2026," said CEO Tobias Meyer, whose contract was extended by the supervisory board until March 2031 the previous day. Despite current developments, the Bonn-based company now aims for an operating result of over €6.2 billion. "Our forecast explicitly does not factor in any improvement in the global economic environment," Meyer emphasized.
Meyer had already begun cost-cutting measures at the start of 2025. In the mail and parcel division in Germany, 8,000 jobs were cut—about four percent of the roughly 190,000 positions. This goal was achieved through "natural attrition," the DHL chief said. But DHL also eliminated jobs elsewhere. By the end of 2025, the group employed just under 584,000 people, compared to about 601,000 the year before. The company aims to cut costs group-wide by more than €1 billion by 2027. Progress was already made last year: "Overall, our Fit for Growth cost program contributed more than €600 million gross to operating profit in 2025," said the DHL chief.
The tariff policy of U.S. President Donald Trump "especially slows down trade on routes to the U.S., but also U.S. exports," Meyer had already complained last year. The tariff dispute also left its mark on the Bonn-based company’s books: while the German mail and parcel business grew, revenue in the largest division, Express, shrank. In international freight forwarding, both revenue and profit slumped. "The global freight forwarding market in 2025 was characterized by ongoing geopolitical conflicts and increasing uncertainty regarding tariffs," the company said.
Now, the fallout from the Iran conflict is also affecting logistics companies. Competitor Kuehne+Nagel, for example, expects shifts in global trade flows due to the Middle East conflict. Air freight is likely to face bottlenecks, CEO Stefan Paul recently said. "We see that about 18 percent of global air freight capacity is currently grounded due to the situation."
Rivals such as UPS and FedEx are also tightening costs and raising prices where possible in response to developments. UPS announced at the end of January that it would cut another 30,000 jobs. The U.S. parcel giant, which is also suffering from the impact of Trump’s tariff policies, had already eliminated 48,000 jobs and closed 93 locations. At Kuehne+Nagel, over 2,000 jobs are set to be cut.
(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi. Edited by Olaf Brenner. For inquiries, please contact our editorial team at frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com.)
