Around 3,000 employees gathered in front of the ZF Friedrichshafen headquarters on Wednesday morning to protest against the management’s austerity plans. The automotive supplier’s works council fears that up to 18,000 jobs could be lost in Germany by the end of the decade – i.e. more than a third of the current 50,000 employees in this country. The company’s management has calculated to the employee representatives that 18,000 employees could be let go without making them redundant for operational reasons, i.e. through retirement, expiring contracts and natural fluctuation. But the plan, we learn from the works council, is that ZF “only” wants to employ around 12,000 fewer people in Germany by the end of 2030. Some of the jobs are to be cut by 2028.
Achim Dietrich, the chairman of the general works council, sees a directional decision against the German locations. The board led by managing director Holger Klein wants to gradually reduce jobs in Germany and relocate production to countries with lower wage costs. “It cannot be the case that the employees are essentially made scapegoats” for the difficult economic situation, says Dietrich. “This wrong approach of making decisions against the workforce and saying that you are actually paid too well for what you do, that doesn’t work.” The difficult situation must be mastered together with the employees – and not against them. The company from Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance did not want to comment on the number. Human resources manager Lea Corzilius said they would not comment on speculation and warned against scaremongering.
The change from combustion engines to electric drives and vehicles with more software is hitting the world’s third largest auto supplier hard. As with other suppliers, many jobs at ZF depend on the combustion engine. “We want to maintain employment, but we know that the transformation to e-mobility alone will cost employment. Where we need two employees for gear assembly, we only need one for the electric motors,” says a company spokesman. Other suppliers such as Bosch are also fighting with employee representatives to save as many jobs as possible in the new world of e-mobility and software. ZF is apparently less optimistic given the high number of jobs that could be lost in the next few years.
There will soon be no more guarantees
In addition, the company has high debts, around eleven billion euros. They mainly come from acquisitions in recent years. Paying them back has become significantly more difficult given the rise in interest rates. Nevertheless, ZF must continue to invest in converting its locations to new technologies. That doesn’t always work: It was only in December that the supplier announced that it no longer wanted to build autonomous shuttles itself – actually a showcase project from ZF.
Employment guarantees currently still apply to most German locations, but they expire at the end of 2026. ZF does not want to give its employees any new guarantees for the period afterwards. Negotiations are currently underway between company management and employee representatives regarding the planned job cuts.
About a month ago, ZF Friedrichshafen announced that it would close its production facility in Gelsenkirchen at the end of this year on the grounds that the plant was unprofitable. 190 employees currently produce car and hydraulic steering systems there. The works council chairman Dietrich accuses the management of breaking their word because there was a future agreement for the Gelsenkirchen location. At the end of 2025, the ZF factory in Eitorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, with around 690 employees will also close. “It is not possible to hold on indefinitely at such locations for which there is no long-term economic prospect,” the company says. Ultimately, debts have to be reduced and the transformation financed. ZF points out that it continues to invest billions in its German locations. However, a “mixed calculation of the costs of different countries and locations” is needed in order to be competitive.