Schaeffler slashes nearly 3,500 jobs as EV losses bite

Schaeffler is swinging the axe. The German automotive supplier will cut roughly 2,660 jobs in Germany and another 800 across the rest of Europe — close to 3,500 positions gone, according to Electrive. The whole thing sits inside a 'cost improvement programme' that management expects to save about €300 million a year.

The company isn't hiding the reason. It points to shrinking demand and brutal competition, with combustion-engine sales sagging and the electric ramp-up dragging well behind schedule. Add above-average labour costs per employee in Germany and an organisation with too many management layers and too little oversight — and the numbers stop working.

The e-mobility division is where the bleeding shows most. It posted a negative EBIT margin of 14.8 per cent for the first nine months of the year, with losses of €571 million in the segment. Schaeffler pins much of that on European automakers losing ground in China. Still, the supplier insists it stays committed to electrification.

The cuts land unevenly. About half hit production, 30 per cent hit research and development, and 20 per cent fall on other functions, spread across 16 European sites. Five locations are slated to close down the road — four of them in Germany — including Dortmund with 430 workers and Morbach with 160, both part of Powertrain & Chassis and both making combustion-engine components. Berlin, with roughly 270 staff, is set to wind down operations, and Schwalbach is closing too, with many of its some 385 employees expected to shift to Frankfurt. Höchstadt loses toolmaking, while Erlangen and Schweinfurt see adjustments to special machinery manufacturing. More reductions are coming at Herzogenaurach, Bühl, Nuremberg and Regensburg.

Zoom out and the scale gets starker. Those 2,660 German cuts equal about nine per cent of the country's workforce of just under 32,000 — but fold in earlier austerity rounds and the 1,800 early retirement deals already signed, and the figure climbs to roughly 18 per cent. The org chart is shrinking too: Handelsblatt reports at least two of the seven hierarchical levels below the executive board will go, and the supervisory board already decided this spring to trim the board itself to eight members by merging R&D with production, supply chain and procurement.

Schaeffler is also betting on what comes next. It flags humanoid robotics and defence as growth areas where it can lean on know-how built in its core business. “Here, we can draw on technological expertise developed in our core business,” said Jochen Schröder, the board member for production.