Bosch's Labor Cutbacks Deeper Than Expected, Worker Rep Says

Worker representative groups fear Bosch’s recently announced jobs and hours cutbacks will be a lot deeper than announced.

The company’s deputy supervisory board chairman tells Reuters that the staff reduction schemes put between 8,000 and 10,000 jobs at risk in its domestic market of Germany.

Frank Sell, who also heads the works council of Bosch's mobility solutions division, says the drastic cutbacks are creating an atmosphere among employees that is “absolutely unbearable”.

With about 135,000 employees in Germany, Bosch says it is forced to make cutbacks to reflect the general reduction in orders from its automaker clients who are suffering declining sales in Europe facing increased production costs, a slowing of uptake of battery-electric vehicles and increased competition from Chinese imports.

Now labor representatives and unions are planning an action plan for 2025 that would not rule out strikes, Sell says.

Bosch’s management board member in charge of human resources, Stefan Grosch, tells journalists the cuts are necessary to ensure the company remains competitive.

Grosch says Bosch's supervisory board would convene this week and was hoping to make the cuts in a socially responsible way, although the fast-changing economic landscape means it must regularly review production capacity.