Auto industry in crisis: clear-cutting at auto supplier Schaeffler

dpa | The automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler is significantly tightening its austerity measures with a further cost-cutting program and thousands of job cuts. The company wants to cut a further 3,460 jobs in Europe, including 2,660 in Germany, as it announced in Herzogenaurach. The closure of four German locations is also planned.

The MDax group justified the further cuts with the automobile crisis in Europe, which required further countermeasures and structural adjustments.

Five locations, four of which are in Germany, are to be closed in the future. According to Schaeffler, this includes the plant in Dortmund, which currently has 430 employees, and the Morbach location, which has 160 employees.

According to Schaeffler, it is also planned to stop activities at the Berlin location, which currently has around 270 employees, and to abandon the Schwalbach location. A large part of the approximately 385 employees should move to the Schaeffler location in Frankfurt. A total of around 190 jobs will be affected by the cuts.

In addition, it is planned to stop activities in tool making at the Höchstadt site and to make adjustments in special machine construction at the Erlangen and Schweinfurt sites. Capacity and structural adjustments are also planned at other locations in Germany - including Herzogenaurach, Bühl, Höchstadt, Nuremberg and Regensburg.

IG Metall and the group works council sharply criticized the new austerity program. “At Schaeffler, one dismantling program follows the next, even before the consequences of the previous one have been overcome,” said Thomas Höhn, corporate representative of IG Metall for Schaeffler. “This is not a future concept for Germany as an industrial location.” Schaeffler had already decided to cut several thousand jobs in 2024 and 2025.

After completing the structural measures announced in November 2024 and 1,800 part-time retirement contracts at the beginning of October, the board of directors decided to start a further earnings improvement program, it said. The aim is to reduce excess capacity, adjust development capacities, reduce personnel costs and reduce the complexity of the organization.

When it comes to job cuts, it was said that around 50 percent would affect production, 30 percent would affect research and development and 20 percent would affect other functional areas. 16 locations in the Europe region are affected by the dismantling.

The annual result should improve by 300 million euros from 2030 as a result of the measures. Schaeffler boss Klaus Rosenfeld estimates one-time costs of around 480 million euros for the savings program.