Continental AG has announced that it will “discontinue” its Agricultural Tires segment “by the end of 2025”, with job losses likely at the company’s Lousado, Portugal factory. At the same time, Continental will focus its Commercial Specialty Tires business on material handling, earthmover and port tyres.
Bridgestone Hispania Manufacturing has formally notified employee representatives of its intention to initiate a collective dismissal procedure. Plants being affected by this procedure are located in Puente San Miguel (Cantabria), an agricultural as well as truck and bus radial tyre plant, and Basauri (Basque Country), a truck and bus radial tyre plant. The news follows “the profound changes occurring in the European tyre market” and results in “the need to adapt the company’s production structure”, according to the company.
Costs are rising and demand is falling. The consequence for the Apollo Vredestein plant in Enschede, the Netherlands, is a structural reorganization: around sixty fixed-term contracts will not be renewed and the plant’s shifts, which currently operate 24/7, will be revised.
Continental intends to cut almost a tenth of research and development jobs worldwide within its Automotive group sector. The company has announced a plan to axe approximately 3,000 jobs by the end of 2026, with “less than half” of the cuts taking place at home in Germany.
Continental is closing or scaling back activities at several ContiTech locations in Germany later this year. It intends to discontinue production at its Bad Blankenburg, Stolzenau and Moers facilities, cease toolmaking operations at the dual Frohburg and Geithain sites and scale back the activities of the future independent business area Original Equipment Solutions (OESL). And as part of the planned Automotive spin-off, the company will relocate a production line from the ContiTech facility in Hanover-Vahrenwald to an Automotive site. These combined measures will affect an estimated 580 employees.
German specialty chemicals company Evonik has announced plans to adopt a “new segment structure” and a “significantly leaner management model” that will lead to significant job cuts. From April 2025 its business units, currently grouped into four divisions, will be corralled into two segments – Custom Solutions and Advanced Technologies – and managed directly by members of the company’s Executive Board.
At a Board of Directors meeting held today, Toyo Tire Corporation approved plans to discontinue the business operations of its European sales subsidiaries, transferring these to a newly established company. From January 2025, Toyo Tyre (UK) Ltd. and three other sales subsidiaries will “successively cease their business activities.”
When we spoke with Michelin at the IAA Transportation show on Monday, the company confirmed that its Stoke-on-Trent site in the UK as an important part of its commitment to the future of retreading in Europe. This commitment apparently doesn’t extend to non-production roles located in the area, as Michelin has announced plans to move many of these to Central and Eastern Europe. More than 60 jobs may be affected.
When a company says it plans to “strengthen the competitiveness” of its business, job cuts are usually not far away. And so it is at Continental, with the company yesterday confirming that in addition to the changes announced last November, further “efficiency measures” within the company’s Automotive group sector will affect around 1,750 jobs.
Last autumn, German business publication Manager-Magazin caught wind of plans at Continental to axe 5,500 jobs in its Automotive group sector. Continental confirmed this shortly afterwards. The magazine now has another exclusive, citing inside information that Continental is currently discussing the elimination of “more than a thousand additional jobs,” leading to cuts in research and development being “more severe than expected.”
In November Michelin announced it would lay off 176 workers at two Spanish plants in response to forecasted weak demand, and this month it will – albeit for an entirely different reason – halt production at four facilities within the country for a two-day period.
According to information from our sister publication in Germany that has since been confirmed by Michelin, yesterday the tyre maker informed employees that it has initiated talks with the works councils and employee unions at its sites in Karlsruhe, Trier and Homburg. Whether Michelin intends to streamline its operations at these locations or close them entirely is not yet known.
Three months ago, Goodyear announced it would cut up to half the jobs at the tyre factory in Fulda, Germany. Consultation with the trade union IGBCE and the plant’s works council commenced in June. These discussions came to nothing – last Friday, union and works council representatives announced that the Goodyear negotiator had unilaterally declared the talks a failure and ended them.
Goodyear is cutting up to 50 per cent of the jobs at its tyre factory in Fulda, Germany, which will result in “a similar sized” cut in tyre production, the tyre manufacturer announced today. Since around 1100 people are employed at the Fulda tyre factory, that means around 550 jobs will be cut. The news comes as a result of Goodyear’s review of its manufacturing footprint.
Despite a first-quarter 2023 net loss of $101 million, down $197 million compared with $96 million of positive income 12 months ago, Goodyear executives tried to shine a positive light on the US-based tyremaker’s latest financial results. Volumes may have been 3.2 million units lower than the same period last year at 41.8 million units, but net sales grew 1 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2022 and 4 per cent excluding foreign currency effects. And Goodyear EMEA is back to breakeven, but that wasn’t enough to avoid talk of accelerated cost-cutting measures.
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