Auto supplier Continental strokes a further 3000 jobs

In view of the crisis in the auto industry, the supplier Continental wants to delete further areas. In the weakening car delivery division, another 3000 jobs in research and development worldwide will be eliminated by the end of 2026, 1450 of them in Germany, the company said. Hesse and Bavaria are particularly affected, the Nuremberg location should be completely closed.

Continental had already announced a year ago to delete 7150 positions in the automotive division, including 5400 in the administration and in 1750. This has now been implemented to 80 to 90 percent. With the now announced 3000 jobs, the number increases to more than 10,000. Continental justified 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 1800 employees. According to the company, the closure of the Nuremberg engineering location affects 140 employees.

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 in Wetzlar are also eliminated, ten 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.

Around ten 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 remains to reduce expenses for research and development to less than ten percent of sales by 2028.

“For our company, forward-looking technology offers are of crucial importance,” said automotive boss Philipp von Hirschheydt. “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.”

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 cut,” said overall managing director Michael Iglhaut, according to a message. “Reduction and cost reductions at all costs” are not a sustainable future strategy. The “deliberate bleeding of the German locations” weakens the division that Continental wants to relieve into independence this year.

Continental announced in December to split off the weakening car delivery division for years and to bring it to the stock exchange as a company. The Annual General Meeting must still agree, the IPO of 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.