The world’s biggest automotive supplier, Bosch, announces a total of 13,000 job cuts globally in response to trade tariffs, slowing demand, high production costs and competition pressures.
It hopes to also make savings on materials and operating costs, lowering investments in facilities and buildings and streamlining logistics and supply chains as it tries to close its €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) cost gap, it says in a company statement.
The cuts will be in addition to those announced last year as it battles cheaper competition from China.
Bosch puts a lot of the blame for its latest move on a lack of a regulatory framework holding back “new technologies, such as hydrogen,” its statement reads.
It also points to competition in the areas of electromobility and automated driving from outside of Europe, primarily from China and the U.S., as causing “considerable delays and demand in Bosch’s sales.”
The cutbacks will begin at Bosch’s German Power Solutions and Electrified Motion divisions, with locations in Feuerbach, Schwieberdingen and Waiblingen in the greater Stuttgart area, as well as Bühl and Homburg, the chief targets for job cuts.
In Feuerbach, about 3,500 jobs are to be cut by the end of 2030, including around 1,500 at the plant as the facility is hit by overproduction due to a decline in diesel cars. The supplier also cites demand for the hydrogen technology products commercialized there being too low as a result of considerable delays to the ramp-up of the hydrogen market in Europe.
At Schwieberdingen, about 1,750 jobs in sales, purchasing, administration and development will be lost by the end of 2030.
Bosch also plans to phase out production of thermoplastic and silicone-rubber-connector technology at the Waiblingen facility, which currently employs around 560 people, by the end of 2028.
At the Bühl/Bühlertal location, where the company develops, commercializes and manufactures electric drives for low-voltage applications for European automakers, the company expects around 1,550 jobs will need to be cut by the end of 2030.
Finally, Bosch plans to cut around 1,250 jobs at the Homburg facility by the end of 2030 and largely consolidate the operational activities of the Power Solutions division in the eastern part of the plant.
“Geopolitical developments and trade barriers such as tariffs lead to considerable uncertainty and this is something that we, like all companies, have to deal with,” Markus Heyn, member of the board of management of Bosch and chairman of the Mobility business sector, says in the company release.
He adds: “We can expect to face even more intense competition. That’s why we’re aiming to seize growth opportunities wherever possible and make sure our Mobility locations worldwide remain viable.”
