Robert Bosch’s plan to slash 13,000 additional jobs shows how the German auto industry’s decline is rippling through Europe’s biggest economy.
Automakers and their suppliers are struggling with waning demand, rising labor and energy costs and intensifying competition from fast-moving Chinese rivals. They have poured billions of euros into battery technology only to find out that the shift to electric vehicles will be slower than expected.
The pressures are forcing automakers and suppliers to make painful cutbacks. Bosch’s peers Continental, Schaeffler and ZF Friedrichshafen are also cutting jobs and expenses, while Volkswagen Group, Porsche and Ford are reducing staff and output to offset weak sales and President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which are intended to boost manufacturing in the U.S.
Overall, Germany’s auto sector has lost roughly 55,000 jobs over the past two years, according to the VDA auto industry trade group. Tens of thousands of additional positions are set to disappear by 2030, in an industry that employs more than 700,000 people.
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