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Examples

  • The TUC has meanwhile urged the government to follow Germany's example in manufacturing and do more for apprentices and so-called mittelstand – medium-sized companiesfirms.

    Airbus promises 600 new UK jobs 2012

  • Wirthwein is a midsized company -- what Germans call the mittelstand, and they say they've found a way to beat the crisis.

    CNN Transcript Sep 8, 2009 2009

  • Analysts say the increased competition is unlikely to affect big German companies, such as Siemens AG, and will instead hit hardest at machinery makers in the mittelstand , the thousands of small and midsize businesses at the backbone of Germany's export economy.

    China Blunts Germany's Edge Mary M. Lane 2011

  • LfA loans are granted to mittelstand companies – small and medium-sized firms – through their regular lenders.

    How Bavaria became a European silicon valley 2011

  • ULF SAUERWALD, WIRTHWEIN NAUEN (through translator): "The mittelstand must become even more active and even more versatile," the manager says.

    CNN Transcript Sep 8, 2009 2009

  • Germany's mittelstand has been hit exceptionally hard by the crisis.

    CNN Transcript Sep 8, 2009 2009

  • Which raises the very real question whether the mittelstand can survive.

    CNN Transcript Sep 8, 2009 2009

  • This recovery is spread widely because every German town seems to have its periphery populated by the famed "mittelstand" of small and not-so-small companies, exporting countless unglamorous but profitable products.

    BBC News - Home 2011

  • At the same time, some of the latest cutting-edge renewable technologies are being developed by small German mittelstand engineering companies.

    The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed 2011

  • mittelstand—Mid-sized and usually family-controlled German manufacturing firms that have been the backbone of the postwar export economy.

    Lean Thinking James P. Womack 2003

Comments

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  • Collective name for medium-sized businesses in Germany, used untranslated in English.

    In German it also means the middle class, from Stand "state, condition, standing, rank, etc." in the particular sense of a social class.

    February 14, 2009