As of: February 21, 2024, 5:11 a.m
By: Markus Hofstetter
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German automotive suppliers are currently making a name for themselves primarily through job cuts.
Industry experts expect the numbers to be even worse.
Hanover - Fewer and fewer cars are being produced in Germany.
After peaking at 5.7 million vehicles in 2016, the number fell from 4.7 million in 2019 to 4.1 million last year.
And the prospects aren't getting any better.
The Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) predicts that domestic production will stagnate at 4.1 million cars in 2024.
Automotive suppliers are cutting a quarter of their jobs: 70,000 jobs are to be lost
This also has serious consequences for the automotive supply industry, in which almost 270,000 of the approximately 780,000 employees in the automotive industry currently work.
“The approximately 310,000 employees in 2018 and 2019 are history,” said Frank Schwope, lecturer in automotive economics at the FHM Hannover University, to the
Automobilwoche
magazine .
Due to the change to e-mobility and the trend towards insourcing among manufacturers, their number will continue to fall.
By 2030 there will only be “around 200,000 employees at suppliers in Germany”.
The creation of new jobs, for example in battery development or production, cannot compensate for the loss of other jobs.
Hundreds of jobs are to be lost at the Bosch factory in Schwieberdingen.
© Arnulf Hettrich/imago
The bad news from automotive suppliers in recent weeks seems to confirm Schwope's assessment.
In mid-February, Continental announced that it would cut 7,150 jobs worldwide in the automotive supply business.
The works council at ZF Friedrichshafen fears a major clear-cut and 12,000 employees could lose their jobs.
At Bosch, 1,200 jobs are to be eliminated worldwide, including up to 950 in Germany.
Automotive suppliers are cutting a quarter of their jobs: the industry is still getting off lightly
For VDA chief economist Manuel Kallweit, the industry even got off lightly with these figures.
“I would have imagined it to be a little clearer during this upheaval.
“This shows that companies want to keep employment in this country,” he told
Automobilwoche
.
The announced job cuts were regulated in a socially responsible manner and the employees were offered other positions in the company.
Given the shortage of skilled workers, many of those affected would also find accommodation in neighboring industries.
In addition, an employee of an automotive supplier who moves to a battery manufacturer is statistically assigned to the electrical industry.
The situation is similar if an employee moves to a semiconductor manufacturer.
“They will then no longer automatically be considered classic automotive supplier companies, but they will still produce components for vehicles.”
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Automotive suppliers are cutting a quarter of their jobs: production decline is higher
Kallweit also points out that in the entire automotive industry, production has declined more in percentage terms than employment.
While the number of employees in the industry fell by six percent from 2019 to 2023, with the decline being greater among suppliers, production fell by twelve percent.
The development is even clearer compared to 2016: the number of cars built fell by 28 percent to 4.1 million, the number of employees only fell by around four percent to 780,000.
“In view of the significant decline in production and the transformation, the employment effects could have been much more significant,” said Kallweit.