Following Volkswagen, even Mercedes-Benz... "If labor costs cannot be cut, assembly and powertrain plants will be closed"

*This content was translated by AI.

For the first time, the possibility of closing Mercedes-Benz plants in Germany has been raised due to high labor costs and a high-cost structure. This statement came directly from an executive responsible for production at the company, offering a glimpse into the current state of Germany's automotive economy.

According to foreign media and industry sources, at an all-staff meeting held on the 22nd (local time) at Mercedes-Benz's Sindelfingen plant, Michael Shibe, the executive in charge of production at Mercedes-Benz, stated, "Production in Germany is no longer competitive by international standards." The company emphasized that while maintaining all its German operations remains its primary goal, achieving this requires a breakthrough in productivity improvements and structural cost reductions.

If an agreement on cost reduction between management and labor fails, the company has drawn a line in the sand, stating it will have no choice but to close one complete vehicle assembly plant and one powertrain production plant in Germany. However, since the specific plants targeted have not yet been identified, major production facilities across Germany—including Sindelfingen, Rastatt, and Bremen—are under intense tension. According to industry sources, Mercedes-Benz is pushing for labor cost cuts totaling approximately 800 million euros and is engaged in tense negotiations with unions over adjustments to working hours and revisions to various allowances.

The announcement has drawn significant attention following the approval just three days ago by Volkswagen's supervisory board of a large-scale restructuring plan titled "Future Plan 2030," which includes cuts to as many as 50,000 jobs. Within Germany's automotive industry, there is little optimism that Mercedes-Benz's cost-cutting efforts will yield positive results, given the unions' anticipated fierce resistance. This is why plant closures and workforce reductions are increasingly seen as inevitable in the near future.

This crisis is not unique to Mercedes-Benz. Major German automakers such as Volkswagen are repeatedly resorting to aggressive restructuring measures and threatening plant closures to overcome their high-cost, low-efficiency structures. Amid the encroachment of Chinese-made low-priced electric vehicles into the European market and increasingly stringent global regulatory environments, Germany's domestic plants—once symbols of its automotive industry—are facing an unprecedented survival crisis. In response, strong opposition, large-scale strikes, and protests led by the German union federation IG Metall and others are continuing, drawing close attention to the outcomes of future labor-management negotiations and potential shifts in the global automotive landscape.

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*This content was translated by AI.