The pressure reshaping Europe’s automotive supply chain is reaching deeper into the engineering offices behind the vehicles themselves. Thyssenkrupp Automotive Technology plans to eliminate roughly 160 to 180 positions at its operations in Essen and Ennepetal, Germany, as the company reorganizes its chassis business.
The reductions are expected to fall primarily on development and engineering functions rather than shock-absorber manufacturing in Ennepetal. They arrive as Thyssenkrupp pushes through a much broader transformation of its automotive operations, including job cuts, international consolidation and changes to its production network. For employees in Ennepetal, a community closely tied to the Bilstein suspension business for generations, the latest announcement is also another round of uncertainty after significant reductions were already made previously.
The Latest Cuts Fall Heavily on Engineering
Thyssenkrupp Automotive Technology plans to eliminate approximately 160 to 180 jobs across its Essen and Ennepetal operations as part of a restructuring of the chassis business. Development and engineering positions are expected to account for much of the reduction. Operational management and quality-management functions are also affected, according to details released with the restructuring announcement. Some responsibilities currently handled at the two German locations are expected to be transferred into existing international competence centres as the company adjusts capacity and consolidates activities.
One important distinction is that Thyssenkrupp is not announcing the shutdown of Bilstein’s shock-absorber manufacturing operation in Ennepetal. The company has specifically said production there is expected to remain unchanged. Instead, the restructuring is focused more heavily on the organizational and technical infrastructure surrounding the chassis operation. Thyssenkrupp intends to bring steering, damping, axle and broader system expertise together under its new structure, which is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027. The detailed implementation still has to be discussed with employee representatives.
Ennepetal Has More Than Jobs Invested in Bilstein
The changes carry particular weight in Ennepetal because Bilstein is far more than another factory that happens to operate there. The company’s history in the area stretches back to 1873, when August Bilstein established the business that eventually developed into one of the automotive industry’s best-known suspension brands. Bilstein still describes Ennepetal as its historic home, and the location combines manufacturing with development, testing and other technical functions. The wider Bilstein organization operates across multiple countries and employs more than 4,000 people worldwide.
That history helps explain the reaction among employees. German broadcaster WDR reported that workers had been told about the potential reductions in early September, before the latest restructuring details were publicly confirmed. Works council chairman Binali Ateser, who has spent decades with the company, described a sharp deterioration in employee confidence. The local works council and IG Metall have been preparing for negotiations and brought in outside expertise as they try to protect jobs. For workers who have built careers around a company deeply embedded in the community, another restructuring is more personal than a line in a corporate cost plan.
Employees Have Already Lived Through One Round of Cuts
The proposed 160 to 180 reductions are particularly significant because employees at Bilstein have already been through a recent downsizing. WDR reported that roughly 100 positions were eliminated in the previous restructuring round. That means some employees who remained after the earlier changes are now facing another period of uncertainty over how much development work will remain in Germany and which functions will be consolidated elsewhere.
The local changes also sit inside a substantially larger cost-reduction program. In March 2025, Thyssenkrupp Automotive Technology announced plans to reduce approximately 1,800 jobs as part of an effort to lower costs by more than €150 million. The company also introduced a temporary hiring freeze for certain positions, adjusted planned capital spending to lower expected sales volumes and moved to reduce capital tied up in inventory. Management said at the time that personnel costs in indirect functions needed to be aligned with lower business volumes. The new German engineering reductions therefore represent another stage of an overhaul that has been running for more than a year.
Thyssenkrupp Is Redrawing Its Automotive Footprint
The restructuring goes beyond headcount. Thyssenkrupp has been redesigning the structure of Automotive Technology to create a smaller number of more focused businesses. Beginning October 1, 2025, the segment was reorganized around four principal areas: Chassis, Components, Aftermarket and Forging. Management presented the structure as a way of reducing organizational complexity, improving customer focus and preparing the automotive operation for profitable growth and greater capital-market independence. The company also completed the sale of its Automation Engineering business to Agile Robots in April 2026.
Changes have extended across the Atlantic. In May, Thyssenkrupp announced plans to close its chassis-related production facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, by March 31, 2027. Around 230 people were employed there when the proposal was announced. Steering-component activities were to be reorganized while the company concentrated more of its U.S. chassis footprint around Bilstein’s shock-absorber operation in Hamilton, Ohio. Taken together, the German, Hungarian and American measures show a company examining where individual functions should sit rather than simply applying identical cuts across every facility.
Engineering Work Is Being Reorganized Across Borders
Germany is not the only place where Thyssenkrupp has reconsidered its automotive engineering footprint. In June 2026, the company announced that around 200 development-related positions in Hungary were expected to be affected by another realignment. At the same time, it planned to add approximately 60 globally oriented business-support positions in Budapest and establish an international testing centre for springs and stabilizers in Debrecen. Thyssenkrupp said Hungary would remain important for engineering, manufacturing and global support despite the reductions.
That makes the latest German announcement more complicated than a simple story of engineering work being abandoned. Some responsibilities from Essen and Ennepetal are expected to move into existing international competence centres, while other technical capabilities continue to be built or reorganized across Thyssenkrupp’s network. The company has not disclosed a one-for-one destination for every German position being eliminated, so it would be inaccurate to assume that all 160 to 180 jobs are simply being recreated in one lower-cost country. What is clear is that the company is increasingly organizing engineering, testing and support work internationally rather than treating individual national operations as largely self-contained businesses.
The Financial Numbers Explain Some of the Pressure
Automotive Technology remains a sizeable business. Thyssenkrupp reported approximately €7.0 billion in segment sales for fiscal 2024/25 and 28,892 employees at the end of September 2025. However, the direction of several important financial measures helps explain why management continues to pursue restructuring. Automotive Technology sales declined from approximately €7.54 billion in the previous fiscal year to €7.04 billion, a drop of about 7%. Adjusted EBIT fell from €245 million to €187 million, a decline of roughly 24%.
The difficult conditions continued into fiscal 2025/26. When Thyssenkrupp reported its third-quarter performance in August 2026, it said Automotive Technology’s order intake remained below the previous year’s level. Falling demand in the original-equipment automotive business was one factor, while portfolio changes also affected comparisons. Segment sales were lower year over year, and earnings were pressured by weaker volumes and higher special freight costs. Management specifically pointed to structural measures in the United States and Hungary as part of its response. Against that backdrop, the Essen and Ennepetal decision looks less like an isolated emergency measure and more like another piece of a continuing attempt to reset the segment’s cost base.
German Suppliers Are Facing Similar Decisions Across the Industry
Thyssenkrupp’s restructuring is taking place during a difficult period for Germany’s automotive supply base. A VDA industry survey released in June 2026 found that 41% of participating automotive suppliers and related medium-sized companies rated their current business situation as poor or very poor. Only 22% described conditions as good or very good. Even more strikingly, 54% said they were reducing employment in Germany, while just 3% were adding domestic jobs.
Investment patterns showed the same pressure. Sixty-seven percent of companies surveyed said investments originally intended for Germany were being postponed, relocated abroad or cancelled. Among companies reducing German employment, 44% were simultaneously increasing employment outside the country. Development capabilities are no longer insulated from those adjustments: 36% of companies cutting staff said development and innovation roles were increasingly affected. That comparison is especially relevant to the Bilstein decision because the newest Thyssenkrupp reductions concentrate precisely on engineering and development. Germany’s supplier industry still employs more than 300,000 people, making repeated moves of this kind significant well beyond individual companies.
Cutting Engineering Is Different From Slowing an Assembly Line
Engineering reductions can be less visible than a plant closure, but they matter because automotive development involves years of accumulated technical knowledge. Bilstein’s own description of its aftermarket development process provides a useful illustration. Earlier in 2026, the company said a 12-person development team in Ennepetal was simultaneously handling roughly 600 product projects, with individual developers responsible for applications covering 10 to 15 vehicles at a time. Development can include vehicle measurement, prototype construction, validation and road testing before a component reaches the market.
There is no indication that this specific 12-person aftermarket team is among those targeted, and it should not be treated as evidence that those particular jobs will disappear. The example instead shows why the location of engineering work matters. Experienced engineers often carry product history, customer knowledge and practical testing expertise that cannot be represented solely by headcount numbers. Thyssenkrupp’s challenge is therefore to cut duplication and costs without weakening the capabilities that make chassis suppliers valuable to automakers. How effectively knowledge is transferred to the company’s international competence centres will be one of the less visible consequences of the restructuring.
The Final Shape of the Cuts Still Matters
The announcement establishes the broad direction, but several details remain to be settled. Thyssenkrupp has placed the planned reduction at approximately 160 to 180 positions and identified development, engineering and related functions as the main areas affected. Employee representatives are now expected to discuss the specific measures with management. That process could determine the final distribution of reductions, how individual functions are transferred and what arrangements are made for affected employees before the new chassis organization begins operating in January 2027.
For Ennepetal, one important point is already clear: Thyssenkrupp says shock-absorber production will remain unaffected by the current plan. That offers some separation between the manufacturing operation and the restructuring of engineering and administrative work, although employees have understandable concerns after successive rounds of reductions. The larger question is what the German operations look like once Thyssenkrupp finishes redistributing responsibilities across its global network. The company is keeping Bilstein manufacturing in its historic home, but the latest changes demonstrate that even long-established development and engineering functions are now being scrutinized as closely as factory capacity.
