Schaeffler plans to cut 3,460 jobs across Europe, including about 2,700 in Germany, and close four German sites. The closures will affect facilities in Berlin, Morbach, Schwalbach am Taunus and Dortmund. The company announced the measures on Tuesday as part of a cost-saving program.
CEO Klaus Rosenfeld said the cuts were a response to the worsening crisis in the European automotive industry. He said the downturn was more than a temporary setback, pointing to weak results at major carmakers including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Schaeffler, he said, needed to reduce capacity to reflect the changing market.
The company also plans to reduce staffing at other German locations, including its headquarters in Herzogenaurach, as well as sites in Schweinfurt, Erlangen, Bühl, Nuremberg and Regensburg. Outside Germany, capacity will be reduced at plants in France, Belgium and Slovakia.
According to figures cited by the IG Metall union, the proposed reductions include 642 jobs in Herzogenaurach and 548 in Höchstadt, where the site will remain open but its toolmaking operation will close. The planned cuts also include 463 jobs in Dortmund, 375 in Schwalbach, 259 in Berlin, 151 in Morbach, 113 in Regensburg, 94 in Bühl and 79 in Schweinfurt.
Schaeffler said roughly half of the positions affected are in production, around 30% in research and development, with the remainder spread across other parts of the business. The company aims to lower annual costs by €300 million by 2030 and estimates that implementing the program will require €480 million in one-off expenses.
Rosenfeld said underused capacity was a significant factor, with excess capacity across the company estimated at 30%. He also cited Germany’s higher labor costs compared with the rest of Europe. Management is seeking to agree on voluntary pay reductions with employees, though the details have not yet been settled. The report also said executive pay is being reduced by 10%, with cuts of 5% for the next management tier.
The layoffs come as Schaeffler tries to expand beyond its traditional automotive and industrial businesses. The company has been investing in areas including humanoid robotics, defense and space, but Rosenfeld expects those new fields to account for 10% of revenue only by 2035.
IG Metall and Schaeffler’s works council criticized the planned cuts, arguing that repeated job-reduction programs weaken the company and Germany’s industrial base. The union noted that Schaeffler announced 2,400 job cuts in Germany in November 2024 and had also reduced a further 1,800 positions through an early-retirement program.
Schaeffler’s announcement coincided with its latest quarterly results. Revenue from July to September was €5.8 billion, slightly below the same period a year earlier, while operating profit fell 7.2% to €245 million. Rosenfeld said stronger business in other areas had partly offset weaker performance in automotive original-equipment operations, and added that the company had won new customers in humanoid robotics.
Sources: Süddeutsche Zeitung.