Emrullah Karaca has been making brakes for the past 20 years, but now he is learning to assemble heat pumps instead as the Continental factory in northern Germany where he works is set to close.
Production of the auto component in the town of Gifhorn will end in 2027 and relocate to Croatia, the Czech Republic and Wales to keep costs “competitive,” Continental said, resulting in around 7,000 job losses worldwide.
The move means a new career for the 49-year-old Karaca, one of a growing number of workers at companies supplying Germany’s crucial automotive sector hit by a tsunami of layoffs.
Faced with the double shock of the end of internal combustion engines and increasing competition from China, European suppliers such as Bosch, ZF and Webasto have all announced cuts – which have piled up to the point that the issue has cast a shadow over the upcoming EU elections.
Brussels has promised to do more to boost the domestic car industry and crack down on unfair competition from cheaper Asian rivals.
But the EU plans to ban the sale of new fossil fuel cars from 2035, meaning some jobs will inevitably become redundant.
– Battery switch –
The impending closure of the Continental factory in Gifhorn was the trigger for Karaca and the other 800 employees working there to begin retraining in another area.
A local heating system manufacturer, Stiebel Eltron, has proposed taking over the site and retaining some employees for future production.
“Brakes or heat pumps, I don’t care,” says Karaca, whose parents both worked for Continental at the factory.
The production of exhaust systems, headlights, gearboxes and brakes has long been an integral part of suppliers in Germany alone and employs around 270,000 people.
But the technologies they specialize in are outdated and making battery cars is a less labor-intensive endeavor.
“If you need 100 people to produce a normal motor today, you only need 10 for an electric motor,” says Jutta Rump, business administration professor at Ludwigshafen University.
In Gifhorn, Stiebel Eltron offers around 300 Continental employees the prospect of continued employment.
Another 100 could be housed in a nearby Siemens mobility plant that supplies rail companies.
– Poor prospects –
Whatever jobs remain are under increasing pressure from Chinese competitors who are securing a growing market share.
Chinese battery maker CATL has quickly become the world’s third-largest automotive supplier, in a sector still led by Bosch, according to consulting firm Roland Berger.
In Germany, according to a study by the German automobile manufacturers association VDA, one in three companies in the industry is planning to relocate part of their production abroad in the coming years in order to save costs.
The ax has already fallen on 3,400 workers at the Ford plant in Saarlouis in western Germany.
The plant closure involves a network of local suppliers, whose workers staged a six-day strike in March seeking better layoff conditions.
Among them, 33-year-old Luca Thonet, who works at Ford supplier Lear, said he would like to stay in the region near the French border.
“But there is almost no industry left in the region and the other factories are not doing particularly well either,” he told AFP.
Thonet referred to the situation at ZF, the second largest German automotive supplier, which had announced the closure of two locations in its home market.
The ZF works council fears that around 12,000 jobs could be cut, although the number in the Saarlouis region could fall.
There may be a labor shortage in Germany, but not all sectors are affected equally.
In IT, product development or sales, “there is a lack of qualified personnel,” says expert Rump. “That’s not the case in production.”
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