Bad news from the vehicle industry: Schaeffler is shutting down operations

Schaeffler recently announced job cuts in Germany and Europe. Now the auto supplier’s strategies are becoming more specific.

Herzogenaurach – There has been repeated bad news from automotive suppliers recently. The automotive supplier Bosch will cut more jobs than previously known. ZF Friedrichshafen is also cutting half of the jobs at a location in Germany and will even cut working hours at a German location. Now the automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler is making its plans for job cuts more concrete.

Automotive supplier Schaeffler is closing plants – concrete dismantling plans

Operations in Berndorf (Austria), where Schaeffler currently produces wheel bearings and wheel hub modules as well as transmission bearings, for example for trucks, tractors and construction machinery, will be discontinued. The company announces this. Due to the change towards automatic transmissions in passenger cars, the clutch factory in Sheffield (Great Britain) will also be closed, it was said. The production of clutches will continue in the Schaeffler factories in India and Hungary. The locations in Kysuce (Slovakia) and Brasov (Romania) will take over production from other plants in the future, but will also be subject to staff cuts.

At the beginning of November, the Bavarian automotive and industrial supplier announced that numerous employees would be laid off. 4,700 jobs in Europe, 2,800 of them in Germany, are to be cut. In Germany, jobs are being lost, particularly at the large Schaeffler locations in Herzogenaurach, Regensburg and Schweinfurt. Outside Germany, 1,900 jobs will be cut.

“The program is necessary in the current environment to ensure the long-term competitiveness of the Schaeffler Group.” “We will implement it in a socially responsible manner and with a sense of proportion,” said Schaeffler CEO Klaus Rosenfeld at the beginning of November about the job cuts plans.

Auto supplier announces job cuts – criticism from IG Metall

In the first nine months, Schaeffler – still without Vitesco – was doing comparatively well economically. Sales rose by one percent after adjusting for currency effects to 12,233 billion euros. The car division also rose by 0.2 percent after adjusting for currency effects – primarily due to further incoming orders in e-mobility. Before special effects, interest and taxes, there was a profit of 713 million euros for the first nine months, after 964 million euros in the same period last year.

The planned reduction of thousands of jobs at Schaeffler met with strong criticism from IG Metall. The first representative of IG Metall Frankfurt, Michael Erhardt, particularly criticized the fact that developer jobs in particular were affected by the reduction plans. “We are playing with the future,” said Erhardt. (bohy with material from the dpa)