German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to negotiate with 30 largest German companies next month to ease the pressure of job-cut in 2009, said her spokesman yesterday.

Ulrich Wilhelm said Merkel will have a meeting with the chief executives of those 30 largest German companies, whose shares makeup the DAX index on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

The German government is likely to provide assisting policies for those companies in exchange for their assurance of keeping jobs next year, he said.

The proposal was first raised by Peter Loescher, chief of Siemens AG, during the seven-hour high-level meeting on Sunday with German business and labor leaders at Merkel's office. Other senior executives attending the meeting also thought it would be feasible, according to a report of the Germany news agency DPA.

Major German trade unions on Monday also hailed the result of the Sunday summit and the proposed negotiation on job cuts.

The German economy is experiencing a tough winter, said the Bundesbank, or the German central bank, yesterday in its monthly bulletin. The banks says that the country is likely to suffer its third consecutive quarter of negative growth when December ends, and the German economy may not be able to pick up until 2010.