150 million euros must be saved
A major automotive supplier is in crisis – 1,000 jobs affected
November 12, 2025 – 20:52Reading time: 2 minutes
Locations, jobs and future projects in Mahle are being tested. The workers’ council wants to fight back.
Mahle’s works council is unwilling to simply accept the 1,000 job cuts worldwide in the automotive supplier’s administration. Public works board chairman Boris Schwürz said in Stuttgart that simply demanding workforce reductions was a unilateral measure. We have contributed to reducing costs in the past.
What is needed is a roadmap for the entire group to prepare for the future. Schwürz complained that the company wants to complete discussions on cost reduction this year.
CEO Arnd Franz emphasized: “We have adjusted our plans and now have to take steps that we did not plan, but which are necessary.” He told the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” that “we have to reduce our capacity in indirect areas, namely in administration, but also in research and development”.
An additional 150 million euros per year should be saved worldwide from next year. “One third of the savings should consist of material costs and two thirds of personnel costs. This equates to about 1,000 jobs worldwide that we will cut.” Half of the cost savings come from Germany and most from the head office in Stuttgart.
Schwürz criticized the company for wanting to suspend investment in future projects. There is no money to be made with electric mobility. But that is where industrial restructuring is headed in the long term. There have been quiet reductions in personnel in the past. Some vacant positions were not filled.
According to the works council, the site in Fellbach with 165 employees, which manufactures products for motorsports, will be abandoned. The employees should be offered new jobs in Rottweil or Markgröningen.
A Mahle spokesman said that by closing Fellbach, the group could save infrastructure costs in its production network and at the same time support other plants in Germany in their transformation.
Therefore, the current production of pistons for sporty series vehicles will be moved to Rottweil to compensate for the expected decline in sales at that location and to secure employment. The development and production of racing applications will be integrated into the Markgröningen location. “Both target locations already have hall space requirements and other technical requirements.”
Franz cited, among other things, the weak market situation in the automotive industry and suppliers, the end of the combustion engine, US tariffs and competition with China as reasons for the savings. Mahle announced in July that it had cut about 600 jobs in Germany in response to falling sales in recent months. To put that in perspective: at the end of last year, around 10,000 people worked for Mahle in Germany.
