A year ago, the company announced that the automotive division will delete 7150 positions, including 5,400 in the administration and in 1750 in development. This has now been implemented to 80 to 90 percent. With the now announced 3,000 jobs, the number increases to more than 10,000. Continental justifies the renewed dismantling with the intensifying situation of the car industry.
220 developer jobs are to be eliminated again at the largest automotive location in Frankfurt with 4,000 employees. Conti had already deleted hundreds of jobs there last year. There are just as many in Babenhausen in Hesse with around 1,800 employees. According to the company, the closure of the Nuremberg engineering location affects 140 employees.
Ingolstadt, Regensburg, Wetzlar and Schwalbach affected
Further bodies are to be lost in Ingolstadt (20 of 1550) and Regensburg (40 out of 3800). In Wetzlar and Schwalbach, where Conti had already announced the closure in 2024, fewer employees should switch to other locations than initially planned. As a result, 200 jobs are also lost in Wetzlar, 10 in Schwalbach.
There is also a job cuts at the software subsidiary Elektrobit based in Erlangen and locations in Berlin, Stuttgart and Braunschweig. There are supposed to be 480 jobs there, including 330 in Germany. An electrobit spokeswoman did not provide any further information on specific locations on request.
Every tenth developer is eliminated
Around 10 percent of the 31,000 developer positions so far are to be eliminated worldwide. Conti wants to make the dismantling as socially acceptable as possible: a large part of the job adjustments should be made via natural fluctuation, for example through pension entries. Details are now to be negotiated with the employee representatives.
Due to the challenging market situation, it has been shown that the previous measures were not sufficient to achieve their own goals, said a Conti spokesman. Therefore, other places would now have to be omitted. The aim of the group is to reduce expenses for research and development to less than 10 percent of sales by 2027.
“Forward-looking technology offers are of crucial importance for our company,” said automotive boss Philipp von Hirschheydt (50). “We therefore invest substantially in research and development in the coming years. At the same time, we continuously improve our competitive strength in the sense of our sustainable market success. “
Works council chief: “No sustainable future strategy”
Sharp criticism came from the employee side. “We are deeply concerned that the deep cuts in automotive research and development will expand into a comprehensive clear cutting,” said overall manager Michael Iglhaut, according to a message. “Reduction and cost reductions at all costs” are not a sustainable future strategy. The “wanted bleeding of the German locations” weakens the division that Continental wants to relieve into independence this year.
Continental had announced in December to split off the weakening car delivery division for years and to the Stock exchange bring to. The Annual General Meeting must still agree to that IPO The division under a new name should then take place by the end of the year. The division has long been a problem child of the group and has repeatedly written red numbers in recent years.