Bosch to cut 750 jobs at Abstatt by end of 2029

What Bosch told staff

Bosch will cut 750 jobs in its Vehicle Motion unit at Abstatt, in the Heilbronn district, by the end of 2029. The unit develops and sells braking systems, vehicle motion software, occupant protection systems and vehicle sensors. Employees were told on Tuesday evening and Bosch confirmed the plan to Handelsblatt and Südwestrundfunk on Thursday, 5 November 2026.

About 5,300 people work at the site, so the reduction is roughly one job in seven, spread over the period to the end of 2029. Bosch says it will carry out the cuts in as socially responsible a way as possible. It has not said which teams, product lines or activities the 750 jobs will cover, or how many positions will go through attrition, phased retirement, early retirement or severance.

Two neighbouring operations are not part of this round: Cross-Domain Computing Solutions and the subsidiary Bosch Engineering GmbH. Bosch says Abstatt will remain a development site, but it has not said which capabilities will remain there in the long term.

Why the work is leaving

Bosch is increasingly introducing steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire systems with Chinese customers first and developing them jointly with its own development site in China. As a result, fewer resources are needed in Abstatt, the company said.

"Customer-facing tasks are therefore being eliminated in Abstatt," Mohammed Abraham, the division's chief financial officer, said. "To secure Abstatt's role in the long term, we need to adjust our structures and costs."

Bosch cited stagnating global vehicle production and falling demand in Europe. It also pointed to growing competition on cost, development speed and productivity, and said competitors in Asia are putting downward pressure on prices with lower-cost offerings. Integrated braking systems face harder price competition as customers ask for cheaper solutions.

The wider cost gap

The Abstatt cut is part of a programme Bosch has enlarged. In September 2025 it identified an annual cost gap of about €2.5 billion and announced about 13,000 job cuts, mainly at German sites, by the end of 2030. It cited more AI in manufacturing and development, lower material and operating costs, and reduced investment in plants and buildings as ways to close the gap.

"Regrettably, we will not be able to avoid further job cuts beyond those already communicated," Stefan Grosch, the board member responsible for industrial relations, said at the time.

Heise counts nearly 24,000 announced job cuts in Bosch's German mobility division since 2024, including the 750 at Abstatt. That count covers the German mobility division over several announcements; it is not the same measure as the 13,000 cuts Bosch announced in September 2025 for its mobility unit by 2030.

The €2.5 billion annual gap is about 2.7% of Bosch's €91 billion revenue in 2025, and the 750 Abstatt cuts are less than 0.2% of the group's more than 400,000 employees.

What is still open

No works council or IG Metall agreement covering these specific cuts has been reported. A 2023 agreement between IG Metall and the general works council ruled out compulsory redundancies for operational reasons through the end of 2027 for Mobility employees in its jurisdiction. The Abstatt reductions run to the end of 2029.

The timing leaves a gap: the no-compulsory-redundancy agreement runs through 2027, while the Abstatt cuts run to 2029. Bosch has not said how the cuts will be distributed across teams or what capabilities will stay at Abstatt long term.