Bad news for Michelin employees: The company plans to cut over 1,500 jobs, almost all of them in Germany.
The French tire manufacturer Michelin is reacting to rising production costs and competition from low-wage countries with extensive job cuts. The company will gradually stop production at the Karlsruhe and Trier locations as well as the production of new truck tires and semi-finished products in Homburg, Saarland, by the end of 2025. Michelin announced this in Frankfurt. A total of 1,410 employees in Germany are affected. Michelin is also relocating its customer center from Karlsruhe to Poland. This affects another 122 employees.
Michelin cited the import of cheap truck tires from low-wage countries and rising production costs as the reason for the job cuts, which put the company under pressure, caused market shares to dwindle and reduced competitiveness. Michelin’s largest European production site for the retreading of truck tires in Homburg and the car tire factory in Bad Kreuznach are not affected, the company emphasized. Production at these locations will continue.
“The commitment of our employees, the internal progress and the investments made in recent years in the affected activities can no longer compensate for the strong competitive pressure,” said Maria Röttger, President of Michelin’s Northern Europe region. The company said it wanted to support the affected employees in new career paths. Discussions were underway with the works councils and the IG BCE union about alternatives for the future use of the affected locations.
The IG BCE “does not want to accept the job cuts and factory closures so easily”. These are wrong. “Michelin just wants to maximize profits and is letting go of highly committed and highly qualified employees to do this,” said the union’s corporate manager, Matthias Hille. “We are not giving up the locations and will continue to work on alternative concepts.”
The US company Goodyear recently announced that it would stop tire production in Fürstenwalde and close its factory in Fulda. Around 1,800 jobs are affected.
Source: Stern
