Daimler CEO Ola Källenius warns of job losses due to the rise of the EV, partly orchestrated by government intervention.
Of course, Källenius, the CEO of Mercedes-Benz Daimler, is behind the EV plans, which are quite ambitious, especially in Europe. According to Reuters however, he also notes that more EVs means fewer jobs in the automotive industry. “We have to be honest about that,” he says to the Financial Times. “Everyone knows that it takes more hours to build a powertrain with a combustion engine than an electric one”.
To deal with this, the Mercedes CEO is in full talk with the works council. Part of the job losses can be absorbed by the car industry itself, for example by creating more jobs in the field of software development.
Källenius focuses his warnings specifically on the EU, where the EV is gaining ground faster than elsewhere because of government policy aimed at this. Jörg Hofmann of the IG Metall trade union also knows that this includes inseparable job losses. The world’s largest workers’ organization expects the automotive industry to lose 100,000 jobs between now and 2025 if the current trend is continued.