Krise der Autoindustrie: Schaeffler streicht Tausende Jobs und schließt Werke

The German automotive parts supplier Schaeffler has intensified its cost-cutting program with the announcement of thousands of job cuts and the closure of factories. The company plans to eliminate 3,460 positions in Europe, with 2,660 of those jobs in Germany, as it announced in Herzogenaurach. Four German sites are set to close down.

The MDax-listed group justified the further cuts due to the automotive crisis in Europe, which requires further measures and structural adjustments. Four locations in Germany are slated to be closed, including the Dortmund plant with 430 employees and the Morbach site with 160 workers. Schaeffler also plans to discontinue activities at the Berlin location, currently employing about 270 people, and abandon the Schwalbach site.

Most of the roughly 385 affected employees are expected to transfer to the Frankfurt Schaeffler site. Around 190 jobs are set to be eliminated overall. Additionally, the tooling business at Höchstadt is to be discontinued, and capacity and structural adjustments will be made at the tool engineering sites in Erlangen and Schweinfurt.

Capacity and structural adjustments are also planned at other German locations, including Herzogenaurach, Bühl, Höchstadt, Nuremberg, and Regensburg. Sharp criticism came from the IG Metall union and the company's employee council, who said the latest cost-cutting program is a "reduction program after another, before the consequences of the previous one have been dealt with."

Thomas Höhn, the IG Metall representative for Schaeffler, said, "This is no future concept for the German industrial location." The company had already decided in 2024 and 2025 to cut several thousand jobs. By the end of 2024, after the structural measures announced in November and the 1,800 early retirement contracts at the beginning of October, 50 percent of the layoffs would affect production, 30 percent would target research and development, and 20 percent would impact other functions.

Of the 16 affected sites across Europe, 16 stand to be closed. Schaeffler's CEO, Klaus Rosenfeld, estimates that the cost-cutting measures will result in annual savings of around 300 million euros starting in 2030. The program is projected to have a one-time cost of about 480 million euros.