Costs must come down

After job cuts: new savings package at automotive supplier

As an automotive supplier, Stiwa, which is managed by Peter Sticht, is fully exposed to the crises among manufacturers. "It's a chain reaction," says the company boss.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Stiwa Group (2))

Over the summer, agricultural machinery manufacturer Pöttinger sent 200 employees to the AMS with promises of re-employment. Now another company has to resort to this measure: The Stiwa Group from Attnang-Puchheim will register employees as unemployed for a certain period of time, while others will see their working hours reduced or their wages waived.

The reduction in temporary workers already took place towards the end of last year, this year 250 employees from the core workforce were made redundant and a further 70 left the company because they wanted to change jobs themselves. "Some are also starting university, others have retired," says Peter Sticht.

The head of the Stiwa Group, which specializes in automation and production, informed the employees of the holding company in Attnang-Puchheim and the software division in Hagenberg on Tuesday that the family-owned company, which has shrunk to less than 1,800 employees in Austria, will not be able to make ends meet.

European car manufacturers are coming under increasing pressure - and suppliers are also feeling the effects.

(Bild: EPA)

This is because the order situation is still very mixed in some cases. "The competitive environment is very challenging and times are very uncertain," says Sticht. A package of measures was therefore put together, which the majority of the automotive supplier's employees were already informed about in October.

We have 20 percent less capacity utilization across the Group this year.

Peter Sticht, Geschäftsführer der Stiwa-Group

What does this package include? In addition to a voluntary wage reduction and a reduction in working hours with an associated reduction in salary, employees will also have to be sent to the AMS with a promise of re-employment. All of this will help to ensure that the company can get going again with as strong a core team as possible as soon as the markets pick up.

"We have no other choice"
"We have no other choice. If there is permanently no work or projects are postponed, we have to react," says Sticht. There is underutilization in mechanical design, for example, and a production line for transmission components had to be completely shut down in September because an order was cancelled.

We have sufficient liquidity until well into the fall of 2025.

Peter Sticht sieht das Unternehmen gut aufgestellt

"Everyone should make a contribution"
And even if there is still relatively good capacity utilization in the software area, all employees are asked to contribute to the cost savings here too, says the company boss, "at the end of the day, everyone should make a contribution to saving costs".

The last few years have been extremely challenging and have left their mark: first the pandemic, then inflation, the turbulence in the energy sector, now the slowdown in consumer sentiment and the upheaval in the industry. "We're stumbling from one crisis to the next," sighs Sticht. What is making it particularly difficult now? "The competitive pressure from China - it's never been as strong as it is now."

More and more companies cannot resist the temptation and prefer to buy their parts in China. In addition, Asian manufacturers are flooding the European market with their products: whether it's photovoltaic systems, electric cars or in the battery sector. Exports out of China are extremely subsidized. "Money doesn't matter there," says Sticht.