Daimler is considering turning Untertuerkheim into a competence center for electromobility, which could include a small battery cell factory along with research and development. This would not replace jobs lost as combustion engine output falls.
The automaker is transferring products that are dependent on the combustion engine to eastern Europe, where they can be manufactured more cheaply.
In high-cost Germany, the company is investing in electric mobility and fuel cells. But because the growth forecast for the global markets for the next few years has been significantly revised downwards and the new technologies are less employment-intensive than diesel and gasoline engines, massive numbers of jobs are being lost.
In July, Daimler’s human resources chief Wilfried Porth said the automaker will need to cut more jobs than the 15,000 previously announced in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Porth said the figure was higher than 15,000 but did not give an exact number of jobs that would need to be eliminated.
