Continental to cut 3,000 R&D jobs and close Nuremberg site as auto slowdown bites

# Continental to cut 3,000 R&D jobs and close Nuremberg site as auto slowdown bites

*Event date: 2025-02-18*

Continental said it will remove about 3,000 research and development jobs from its automotive division by the end of 2026, in a fresh sign of strain across Germany’s car-supply chain. The company said more than half of the cuts will fall in Germany, and that its Nuremberg facility will be shut. Plants in Hesse and Bavaria will also be affected.

The announcement is significant because it reaches beyond a single site closure. Research and development teams sit at the core of a supplier that depends on engineering capacity, long production cycles and close ties to automakers. Continental said the downturn in Germany’s automotive industry was the reason for the latest round of cuts, and a company spokesman said the firm would miss financial targets despite earlier cost savings because market conditions remained challenging.

The job reductions come after another large restructuring announced a year earlier, when Continental eliminated 7,150 jobs in its automotive division. This latest move appears to extend that effort rather than replace it. The company said it wants to preserve competitiveness and continue investing in research and development, even as it shrinks its workforce and reconfigures its footprint.

Continental also said the reductions will be handled as socially responsibly as possible, with most of the cuts expected to come through not replacing people who retire or leave. That approach suggests the company is trying to avoid a sudden wave of compulsory redundancies. Even so, the scale of the change is substantial enough to alarm labor representatives. Michael Iglhaut, who heads Continental’s general works council, said he was deeply concerned that deep cuts in automotive research and development could escalate into a broader restructuring and weaken German locations.

The cuts also sit inside a wider corporate transition. Continental wants to make its automotive division independent this year, but shareholders still need to approve the plan. That makes the layoffs part of a larger strategic reset: the company is trying to sharpen its business before a possible separation, while also reducing costs in a sector that has been under pressure for several years.

For workers, the immediate questions are where the job losses will fall, how quickly local sites will shrink and what the Nuremberg closure means for regional engineering capacity. For Continental, the test is whether a leaner operation can still fund the technology work it says remains crucial. The company is betting that a smaller footprint can be made more competitive. The evidence in this packet shows only that the cost of that bet will be counted in thousands of jobs and at least one closed site.

Continental’s broader corporate plan makes the cut more than a cost exercise. The company wants to make its automotive division independent this year, and shareholders still have to approve that move. That means the workforce reduction, the Nuremberg closure and the engineering trim are all part of the same strategic reset. The company is trying to present a smaller automotive business as the one best positioned to survive the next phase of the market, even if the immediate result is more uncertainty for employees and local sites.