Schaeffler Job Cuts: Five European Sites to Close by 2028

Which sites close

The cuts fall mainly on the business that makes original equipment for carmakers. In Germany, the Dortmund plant with 430 employees and the Morbach site with 160 will close, operations in Berlin will end, and Schwalbach, with about 385 staff, will shut, although many of its employees are expected to move to Frankfurt. The fifth closure is a small site in Herstal, Belgium, with about 15 people. By function, about half of the lost jobs are in production, 30% in research and development and 20% in other areas.

Other plants face reductions

Several locations that stay open will also shrink. Toolmaking will stop at Hoechstadt, special machinery production in Erlangen and Schweinfurt will be adjusted, and Herzogenaurach, Buehl, Nuremberg and Regensburg face changes to capacity and structure. Outside Germany, Schaeffler will reduce production and development capacity at Haguenau and Toulouse in France and at Skalica and Kysuce in Slovakia. Talks with works councils and employee representatives come first, and Tyrepress said the net reductions are likely to be complete by the end of 2028.

Costs, savings and pay

Schaeffler puts the one-off cost at about 480 million euros, most of it to be booked as restructuring provisions in 2026. In return, the programme should improve annual earnings by about 300 million euros from 2030. The company also plans a temporary, voluntary pay cut at all levels of the hierarchy to save money and limit further job losses. It says its strategy as a broader motion technology company, with new areas of growth, could offset part of the reductions.

Part of a wider squeeze

Schaeffler is the latest German automotive name to announce deep cuts. Volkswagen said in September 2026 that it would double its planned job reductions to 100,000, and Porsche decided in July 2026 to cut another 5,000 jobs by 2035, taking its total planned reductions to 9,000. Lower car production in Europe now reaches suppliers that make bearings, drivetrain parts and machinery for carmaker plants.

What it means for drivers

There is no direct effect on car owners: the closures cover factories that supply carmakers, and they run mainly through 2027 and 2028. The longer-term effect is fewer supplier plants in Germany, with production and development concentrated at the remaining sites. For workers in the affected towns, the details will depend on the talks with works councils over the coming months.

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