The German group Bosch announces inadequate results and prepares to lay off more staff

The bad news continues for the German automotive sector. The German technology group and automotive supplier Bosch is not meeting its targets for the current year and is not ruling out further job cuts. “Bosch will not reach its economic targets in 2024,” CEO Stefan Hartung told the “Tagesspiegel”.

The company had already announced a cut of 7,000 jobs in Germany, but, at this point, it seems very likely that the company cuts are not over and that they will continue in the future "At the moment I cannot exclude that we will have to further adapt the capabilities of the staff”, confirmed the CEO.

The conclusion is that Bosch's sales in 2024 will be "slightly lower than in the previous year." Bosch generated almost 92 billion euros in 2023 and had recently speculated on an increase for the current year. “Our return on sales will be a maximum of 4%,” Hartung announced. The previous year it was 5%.

The Bosch boss reportedly said that Bosch "still has its sights set firmly on the target of 7% by 2026", but this still appears very far away and achievable only at the price of painful cuts.

Bosch's plans to cut jobs around the world have been announced several times in recent months. In total there are more than 7,000 jobs affected. The German locations are largely affected, including in the automotive supply sectors, but also in the tool division and the household appliances subsidiary BSH.

In the automotive supply industry, Bosch recently wanted to reduce thousands of employees to their standard working hours, from 40 to 35 hours.

The group cited the main reason for the plans as maintaining competitiveness. According to the works council, 25,000 employees across the country protested against this measure in mid-March. After negotiations, the austerity plans have recently been eased somewhat.

The Bosch company is almost entirely owned by a charitable foundation that uses profits for social and community purposes. The founding family is only minimally involved. However, this does not stop you from making painful cuts