American big business in Germany

US auto giant Ford saw its sales boom in 2015, which led to more jobs at its factory in Cologne. It logged an annual revenue of $19.76 billion (17.5 billion euros) in Germany, making it the largest American company here.

The biggest US employer in Germany is fast-food chain McDonald's. According to the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, McD's employs 58,000 people in its various franchises across the country.

The automaker is also a job machine as a result of its jump in sales. It ranks third in the "Top 30 US Employers" sub-category, with 25,426 employees on its German payroll.

Germany as a business location is generally perceived as a "good" place to invest in, according to US companies polled by AmCham Germany. Carmaker Opel - a subsidiary of General Motors - is no exception. With more than 18,000 workers and sales to the tune of $14.1 billion in 2015, Opel is number two in terms of revenue and ranks fourth in the jobs category.

A point of criticism named by US companies is high energy taxes here, which they said could dent the country's competitiveness, especially when compared with Asian nations. Last year, chemicals firms and oil companies suffered disproportionately from low oil prices, causing US oil and gas giant Exxon to slip into fourth place in total sales rankings, on revenues of $9.5 billion.

Online retailer Amazon profited from Exxon's slide. The e-commerce company, despite being hit by massive strikes last year, sold goods worth more than $11 billion in Germany, and boosted its local workforce to over 10,000. To put that in context: the 50 biggest US firms in Germany, taken together, reported total revenues of $170 billion in 2015.

AmCham President Bernhard Mattes has called on Germany to "do more to digitize its economy." The government having at last agreed on a 'digital agenda,' he said, "action must be taken now." The fact that the world's most valuable company, Apple, ranked only tenth in sales, after taking in $5.5 billion last year, underscored his point.

As in previous years, good news in 2015 came from the services industry and trade, which grew a combined 14 percent. Alongside retailer Amazon, personnel services provider ManpowerGroup made significant strides, coming in second after McDonald's on job creation with 27,000 employees.

Package delivery service UPS is also a job spinner, having boosted its German workforce to 18,000 last year, ranking in fifth place. All told, the 30 biggest US employers have 330,000 Germans on their payrolls.