Benz and Audi axe thousands of jobs

Daimler has followed key rival Audi in announcing it will slash more than 10,000 jobs as it switches to an electric-focused future.

Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, admitted in a statement on Friday that it would shed the jobs over the next three years, while Audi confirmed it would lose 9500 jobs in the next five years.

The job cuts are not a shock in the industry, as electric cars are less labour-intensive to assemble than conventional combustion-powered cars.

What was unusual was that while all this was going on, arch-rival BMW was investing €400 million in its Dingolfing, Bavaria, plant to prepare it for electric-car production.

Dingolfing is BMW’s largest European production plant, and it’s being prepped for the 2021 iNext EV, though it will remain able to build plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and conventional combustion cars on the same production line.

BMW has said it will try to avoid “drastic measures” like job cuts, though it has reduced employee bonuses to slash fixed costs.

That’s better news than workers received at the other Bavarian carmaker, with Audi preparing to hack 15 per cent of its German workforce by 2025.

Audi insisted the move would free up €6 billion for EV investment, in both technology and marketing strategies, and that the rest of the “core” workforce would be guaranteed until 2029.

“The company must become lean and fit for the future, which means that some job profiles will no longer be needed and new ones will be created,” Audi said in a statement.

“That is why Audi is investing systematically in future-oriented qualification measures for the employees and thus in the future of the two sites in Germany”.