Bosch, ZF, Goodyear, Michelin – the list of auto parts manufacturers that are laying off employees is getting longer every day. Difficult times of change are coming, as dark clouds hang over unskilled workers, also in Poland.
The ZF plant in Gelsenkirchen is scheduled to close by the end of 2024. The steering plant already faced problems in 2018, but only now have bold decisions been made. Bush will leave by 2025 1500 employees From the development, management and sales departments. Goodyear (Fulda and Fürstenwalde) and Michelin (Karlsruhe and Trier) will also see layoffs. That's a total of just over 3 thousand employees.
Currently, German spare parts suppliers are hiring 270 thousand people. This number may decrease to 200 thousand. In 2030, said Frank Schwopp, an automotive analyst and lecturer at the University of Hannover.
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Interestingly, forecasts from 2021 indicate the creation of just over 100,000. New jobs – thanks to electrification and (theoretically) stricter exhaust gas purity standards. Euro 7. However, the reality turned out to be different. There has been no increase in employment over the past five years.
This in turn fell by 6% in the entire German automobile industry. Between 2019 and 2023. “In percentage terms, the decline was greater among suppliers, but the decline in car production was much greater,” says Manuel Calloit, chief economist at the German Automotive Industry Association. “We still have that Lack of trained workers And they will not be smaller in the times to come,” he stated in an interview with Automotive News Europe.
In Poland, specialists are employed
“We are already observing the deterioration of the financial situation of suppliers, a clear example of which is the numerous bankruptcies among companies in Germany. However, many global Tier 1 companies [kluczowych producentów – dop. red.] Rafael Orlowski of AutomotiveSuppliers.pl has announced significant job cuts in the last 10 weeks or so.
Although the Stellantis Group eventually decided to close the engine plant in Bielsko-Piała, the situation in Poland, which produces many auto parts, It's not as bad as you might expect.
In 2023, “greater demand predictability and greater supply chain stability have led to… The number of full-time employees has increased With a slight decrease in temporary work,” Małgorzata Zborowska-Stęplewska wrote in the Automotive Suppliers Quarterly.
More precisely: the eight employers analyzed employed a total of approximately 63.9 thousand. the people. Compared to 2022, it increased by 2.3 thousand. Full-time jobs, but at the same time reducing the number of people from recruitment agencies (-106 people). The largest employer, ZF Corporation, was looking for people for the engineering and IT centers. Lear, second on the podium, employed 635 full-time workers. It has factories in Tychy and Mielec, as well as three development centers: Tychy, Legnica and Pruszków.
Despite Poland's strong economic situation, the future does not look optimistic. According to what was reported by the Auto Parts Manufacturers Association. Investments are flowing away from the Old Continent. Thanks to the Inflation Control Act, the United States “attracted companies from all over the world and… These countries have significantly overtaken the European Union, recording three times more foreign direct investment in the past two and a half years.
The auto industry has long indicated that the transformation we are witnessing could be painful. Without a coherent EU policy, including a plan to support the domestic automobile industry, we will only weaken the state of the industry, its position in the world, and therefore the European economy as well. It has become clearly clear who currently benefits and who loses as a result of the changes that the European automotive industry is going through.
Thomasz PippenPresident of the Automotive Spare Parts Distributors and Manufacturers Association
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