2024 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:13
The auto industry is facing a radical change. In order to mitigate job losses, IG Metall and the economy rely on the help of politics.
The planned measures aim to facilitate access to short-time working and to better qualify employees in the transition from internal combustion engines to difficult electric motors.
spoods.de
Politics, trade unions and business associations want to pull together, as became clear after a top meeting in Berlin.
Qualification of employees
After the meeting in the Chancellery under the leadership of Chancellery Minister Helge Braun (CDU), IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann called for quick political steps to facilitate the restructuring of the industry. Hofmann said on Wednesday evening that he expected “concrete results soon”, for example to qualify employees and to facilitate short-time work.
They talked about how the mobility transition could be achieved "without employees getting under the wheels" and without "industrial deserts" in regions that are heavily dependent on the combustion engine. "For me, short-term doesn't mean months," he added.
VDA: It's about Germany's competitiveness
The vice-president of the VDA car association, Arndt Kirchhoff, said it was about how the competitiveness of Germany as a location could be maintained. For this, employees would have to be qualified for new jobs. "That is a great challenge." It is not about billions in aid, but about taking the right measures. The responsible federal ministries now wanted to get this off the ground.
The president of the employers' association Gesamtmetall, Rainer Dulger, said that the phase of upheaval in the industry in the face of digital change and electromobility is falling into a downturn. Therefore, easier access to short-time work benefits is necessary.
In a position paper by VDA, Gesamtmetall and IG Metall at the meeting, it is said that it is of the greatest interest to society as a whole to have a competitive, innovative and employable industry in Germany in the future.
Relief of short-time work benefits
The easing of short-time work benefits must be acted quickly because many company decisions are made in the first quarter. It must be made possible for the companies to keep employees despite temporarily lower order volumes, it says in the paper. A fund could make it easier for suppliers to access equity or debt capital.
The automotive industry is in the midst of a fundamental change from gasoline and diesel vehicles to more climate-friendly alternative drives such as electric motors. Manufacturers and suppliers have to invest billions. But fewer jobs are required for e-cars because there are far fewer components. So far, however, e-mobility has hardly produced any money.
Declining demand
At the same time, demand in important sales markets has fallen. So far, this has mainly affected suppliers. There is already short-time working and the announcement of job cuts. According to a scenario in the report of an expert commission, hundreds of thousands of jobs in the German auto industry could be at risk.
Stefan Wolf, CEO of the automotive supplier ElringKlinger and VDA board member, told Deutschlandfunk that the industry is already very well positioned in the field of fuel cells and battery technology. "But of course we have to do more research there, and if government funds are made available and not only in our company but in many other supplier companies, I think we will manage the structural change." Wolf named a sum of 10 to 20 billion euros, also for the expansion of the charging infrastructure. (dpa)
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