The austerity course at automaker Daimler may be sharper than expected. As the "Handelsblatt" on Monday, CEO Ola Källenius wants to save considerably more on staff than the approximately 1.4 billion euros he mentioned in November when he presented his strategy for the coming years. According to the report, up to 15,000 jobs will be lost worldwide. So far, only at least 10,000 have been mentioned. However, Daimler never mentioned this number itself, but only spoke once of a “low five-digit number”. Daimler also did not want to say anything about the new number.
The General Works Council emphasized that he did not know the number and did not want to comment on it. There is an agreement with the company management, which primarily deals with adapting workflows and processes. And of course the reduction in personnel costs is part of increasing efficiency. But what does not exist is an agreement on a specific number of positions that are to be eliminated. "These numbers games, whoever puts them into the world, do not take us one meter further," it said.
According to "Handelsblatt", Källenius wants to present his tightened plans in Stuttgart on Tuesday, even if he also presents the balance sheet for 2019. In view of a drastic drop in profits, this should not be exactly glamorous anyway.
According to already known preliminary figures, Daimler achieved an operating profit of 5.6 billion euros in 2019. That is only half as much as in 2018 - and already there the result was clearly down. This does not even include additional costs in connection with the diesel affair, which the group had only made public just three weeks ago: For recalls and proceedings worldwide, he expects a further 1.1 to 1.5 billion euros - in addition to the 1 6 billion that were put aside for the diesel affair in the course of the year. Even then, experts had suspected that the previous savings program will probably not be enough.
Automated driving technology is an expensive undertaking
Källenius, who took over the post of CEO from Dieter Zetsche in May, has since lowered earnings expectations several times. The temporarily weak passenger car sales at Mercedes-Benz picked up again in the second half of the year and in the end brought the core brand another sales record. But Daimler is groaning away from the expensive diesel contaminated sites, also under the high costs of entry into electromobility, which must now succeed quickly in the face of impending fines if the CO2 limit values are exceeded.
The further development of future technologies such as automated driving is also an expensive undertaking that devours billions. Added to this was the slowdown in the truck business.
Källenius therefore launched a savings program in front of investors in November. In addition to personnel costs, he also wants to significantly reduce material costs and also cap investments, thin out the expensive model range and concentrate more on the vehicles with the highest profit margins in the individual segments. According to the "Handelsblatt", the end of some models, including the S-Class, has already been decided. The end of the X-Class, a pick-up model that was only launched on the market in 2017 but fell short of expectations, was announced last week
