It is quite rumbling around Opel’s presence in its home country of Germany. The brand new CEO Uwe Hochgeschurtz hopes to remove some uncertainty. According to him, Opel is just sticking to its German factories.
Opel’s parent company Stellantis would like to get rid of the German factories, it was announced last month. Even in Opel’s home port in Rüsselsheim, there are fears for the future. Opel would have to undergo a major reorganization there, in which, among other things, the R&D branch of the brand would also be largely removed from Rüsselsheim. All in all, quite a few uncertain messages for the German Opel employees. As a result, the presidents of the concerned states decided to send a burning letter to Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.
Opel CEO Uwe Hochgeschurtz is now making himself heard in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Perhaps that is a reaction to the action of the state presidents. For the time being, the CEO has a reassuring message. “We keep all the factories. Rüsselsheim, Eisenach and Kaiserslautern are and will remain our factories in Germany,” said Hochgeschurtz. “We stick to our contracts.” The German medium reports that Hochgeschurtz would be somewhat surprised at the concerns among employees about the future.
So it seems for the time being that things will remain reasonably the same, although Hochgeschurtz does warn against a changing workforce. The transition to a more electric supply is the main cause of this. “We need fewer people with mechanical skills and more for software and chemistry (batteries, ed.).” This will probably lead to job losses. Previously, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess warned, among others, of significant job losses due to the shift to electric mobility.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl