Future in Hildesheim unclear
Bosch boss suggests further job cuts
21.09.2024, 01:07
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Bosch is struggling with sales problems in all divisions, and thousands of jobs are set to be lost. CEO Hartung has announced that further job cuts may become unavoidable. No decision has yet been made regarding the plant in Hildesheim.
Bosch CEO Stefan Hartung has not ruled out an expansion of the planned job cuts. “The current economic situation makes it difficult to make forecasts. For example, no one can currently make a serious prediction about what production will be needed in which areas in five years. Accordingly, it cannot be ruled out that capacities will have to be shifted or even reduced,” the chairman of the Bosch management board told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group.
With regard to the possible closure of the Hildesheim electric motor plant, Hartung said: “Nothing has been decided yet about our plant in Hildesheim.” There is no corresponding resolution for adjustments at the Hildesheim site. Talks will be held with employee representatives to “secure competitiveness,” said Hartung. The Bosch boss emphasized that the technology group stands by its agreement with employee representatives to rule out redundancies for operational reasons. However, if entire plants can no longer be operated economically, that is a “new situation.” Last year, Bosch and employee representatives agreed on a job guarantee until 2027 for around 80,000 employees in Germany.
At Bosch, 7,000 jobs are already up for grabs, almost half of them in the core automotive technology division. The group also manufactures heat pumps, household appliances, and power tools, among other things. But Bosch is currently having “problems with demand almost everywhere,” Hartung told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” in July.
Use climate money for charging infrastructure
Hartung appealed to the traffic light coalition to implement the climate money announced in the coalition agreement. “The climate money could still come after all. There are several ways to use it: either you give it back directly to the population, or you use it to make CO2-reduced fuels cheaper or to expand the charging infrastructure more quickly.” Purchase premiums for electric vehicles, on the other hand, are interventions in the market that should be viewed with caution, said the Bosch boss.
With regard to the ban on combustion engines, Hartung also suggested a stronger promotion of fuels with reduced CO2 emissions. “Just because I will no longer be producing combustion engines from 2035 onwards does not mean that customers will not still want them and will therefore, for example, simply continue to drive their old cars for as long as possible.” When it comes to regulating fuels, the CO2 price could be an “important part of the solution”. At the same time, Hartung warned against making fossil fuels too expensive. “People’s mobility and the logistics of goods could become so expensive that the social balance is endangered. In any case, the money collected through the CO2 price would have to be channeled back into the economy.”