Schaeffler said on Tuesday, 3 November, that it will cut a net 3,460 positions in Europe, about 2,660 of them in Germany, and close five sites. The German auto and industrial supplier expects one-time expenses of about €480 million and savings of about €300 million a year by 2030.
Two weeks earlier, Schaeffler said its global incoming orders for humanoid robotics had risen to some €400 million. By our arithmetic, the one-time bill for the cuts is 1.2 times that humanoid order intake, or about €139,000 per position cut.
Chief executive Klaus Rosenfeld told CNBC the company is rearranging capacity “to free up also capacity for the new things that are coming”, naming robotics and defense.
The company called the move a performance improvement program, responding to an “Automotive industry crisis in Europe”. About 50 percent of the positions affected are in production, 30 percent in research and development and 20 percent in other functions, across 16 locations in Europe.
The plan closes the Dortmund plant, which employs 430 people, and the Morbach site with 160 employees; both make products for internal combustion engines. Operations at the Berlin site end and the Schwalbach site closes, with many of those staff expected to move to Frankfurt. The Herstal site in Belgium, with about 15 employees, also closes.
Relative to a German core workforce of 31,957 at 30 September, the company put the German cuts at approximately nine percent of positions by 2028, rising to about 18 percent including earlier programs and 1,800 partial-retirement agreements. A temporary, voluntary pay cut across all levels, starting with the board, is also planned. The group had 108,004 employees worldwide at 30 September.
Schaeffler’s expected one-time expenses for its 3 November 2026 performance improvement program (about €480 million), its global humanoid robotics incoming orders as stated on 20 October 2026 (some €400 million) and the expected annual savings by 2030 (about €300 million). The 1.2x ratio is our arithmetic.
Business Pill · Operating Leverage
A short explainer on operating leverage: why profits swing more than revenue when costs are largely fixed, as with factory overcapacity. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Schaeffler.
The key insight: Schaeffler is paying about €480 million once to cut 3,460 positions in Europe while its humanoid robotics orders stand at some €400 million; by our arithmetic the bill is 1.2 times that order intake, about €139,000 per position.
What the CEO Told CNBC
Rosenfeld told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe that the problems are “a downturn in the automotive industry, overcapacity in our plants, it is too much research and development capacity that we have, too high personnel costs, and also a too complex organization”.
“We are basically rearranging here certain capacities to free up also capacity for the new things that are coming. They are not coming in the same synchronized manner as we would like to see it,” he said. He added: “But it’s important that we not only adjust on the one hand, but that we look forward into the new opportunities like robotics, like defense, and others.”
Rosenfeld also told CNBC the company sees “ample opportunity to create efficiency” through robotics, automation and AI, according to the network.
The Humanoid Robotics Side
In its nine-month results, also published on Tuesday, Rosenfeld said: “Especially in humanoid robotics, we won new customers and continued to expand our order book during the reporting period.”
On 20 October Schaeffler opened a lighthouse factory for humanoid robotics in Taicang, China, where humanoid robots assemble “key joint modules – including actuators – for the next generation of humanoid robots”. Six humanoids work at five stations on the line, the company said, and the factory marks the start of mass production of these components.
Chief operating officer Jochen Schröder said in the job-cuts release that the group has growth opportunities “particularly in the areas of humanoid robotics and defense”. The company said at least a portion of the job reduction is to be offset by creating positions in new growth areas.
The business lever here is the shift of an industrial workforce from combustion-engine parts to physical-AI components: Schaeffler is cutting production and R&D jobs in automotive while building actuator lines run partly by robots.
As we read the releases, the cuts and the robotics build-out are two halves of one plan: the program cuts production and R&D in the automotive OEM business, while the COO names humanoid robotics and defense as the growth areas meant to offset part of the reduction.
As we read the job split, 30 percent of the cuts fall in research and development, a share ING’s Rico Luman told CNBC surprised him “a bit as there’s a lot of effort required to develop new products and markets”.
As we read the timing, the savings arrive later than the costs: most of the €480 million is to be booked as restructuring provisions as early as 2026, and the €300 million a year is expected by 2030.
Klaus Rosenfeld, Schaeffler CEO, to CNBC, 3 November 2026
“We are basically rearranging here certain capacities to free up also capacity for the new things that are coming.”
Three Implications
FOR WORKERS About 2,660 of the 3,460 positions are in Germany; implementation is primarily scheduled for 2027 and 2028, Schaeffler said.
FOR THE HUMANOID SUPPLY CHAIN Schaeffler’s Taicang line has humanoids assembling joint modules, including linear and rotary actuators, and marks the start of mass production of these components, the company said.
FOR INVESTORS Schaeffler expects about €300 million a year in savings by 2030 against about €480 million of one-time expenses, and confirmed its 2026 guidance.
The framework places physical inputs at the floor of the AI build-out: “Every GPU cooling fan, every data-center motor, every robotic actuator, every EUV lithography machine depends on neodymium-iron-boron magnets.”
As we read it, Schaeffler is moving its industrial base toward that floor, making actuators for humanoid robots while cutting combustion-engine capacity. Schaeffler’s releases do not mention magnets or rare earths.
What Is Not Established
The number of new positions in robotics or defense is not established. Schaeffler said only that at least a portion of the reduction is to be offset by positions in new growth areas, without a figure.
The €400 million is incoming orders, not revenue, and Schaeffler has not given a robotics revenue target in these releases. The comparison with the €480 million one-time bill is our arithmetic, not a link the company draws.
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Schaeffler is cutting 3,460 positions in Europe at a one-time cost of about €480 million, 1.2 times its roughly €400 million in humanoid robotics orders, by our arithmetic. Its CEO told CNBC the cuts free up capacity for the new things that are coming, naming robotics and defense.
A note on sourcing. Job-cut figures, sites, costs, savings, headcount and the humanoid robotics order figure are from Schaeffler’s press releases of 3 November and 20 October 2026. Klaus Rosenfeld’s spoken comments are as reported by CNBC. Ratios and per-position figures are our arithmetic. We did not contact Schaeffler.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
