As part of a savings plan aimed at increasing its competitiveness for the delicate transition to electric mobility, the German automotive supplier Continental announced the elimination of 7,150 positions worldwide on Wednesday February 14.
“Around 5,400 jobs will be affected” in administration, and 1,750 in the research and development branch, “by 2025 at the latest,” said the group in a press release which details the restructuring plan announced at the end of 2023. This represents more than 3% of the group's entire workforce.
The objective of the program is in particular to achieve 400 million euros in savings per year in the company's automotive division. This plan plans to “rationalize and simplify” activity, by grouping together administrative or research and development units.
Energy costs too high
“In this way we will strengthen collaboration, exploit synergies and shorten development times – and thus improve our long-term competitiveness,” explained Philipp von Hirschheydt, responsible for automobiles on the group's management board. The job cuts “will be implemented gradually” and in “the most socially responsible manner possible,” the group promised.
Like the entire sector in Germany, the company is suffering from excessively high energy costs and the difficult transition to electric mobility in a sector which has built its success on thermal cars.
Last summer Continental, one of the world's largest equipment manufacturers, had already announced the closure of one of its German factories, in Gifhorn, arguing that costs were too high and that demand was falling.
The German Bosch, world leader, announced in mid-January a plan to cut 1,200 jobs in its embedded electronic systems division. A month earlier, it planned a plan to cut 1,500 jobs at two sites in Germany manufacturing transmissions. And the ZF group has also announced the closure of two factories in quick succession in recent months in Germany, with several hundred positions eliminated.
