German businesses are much more regulated than ours, as their government takes an active hand in protecting their citrizens’ jobs. They are still employed because their government won’t import unnecessary workers to suppress wages; it actually represents the people.
Until you are ready to accept the standard of living of an Asian peasant, you will always be deemed “expensive”.
Germany is an export driven economy that successfully competes against Asian economies... and still manages to see good pay and better work environments than our own. Secondly, they do import workers. Mainly Turks under the gastarbeiter program.
What they don’t have is excessive corporate taxation. They don’t double-tax corporate earnings made overseas. And while environmental regulations are very strict, the rest of the regulations are more business friendly.