Wafios in Reutlingen: Cuts affect 450 employees!

Wafios in Reutlingen: Cuts affect 450 employees!

The mechanical engineering industry in Germany is facing turbulent times. The renowned machine manufacturer Wafios from Reutlingen, widely known as the world market leader in the field of wire and tube bending machines, announced today that it will introduce short-time work for around 450 employees. This affects around 60 percent of the entire workforce, which currently consists of 750 employees. The start of this measure is planned for July 1, 2025 and will initially last six months, as Merkur reports.

The background to the decision is falling order numbers and rising costs, which are being felt in several business areas. Wafios boss Uwe-Peter Weigmann assured at a staff meeting on June 4th that short-time work should not be seen as an alarm signal. Many areas, such as e-mobility and spring production, continue to do well, while other areas are weakening. The aim of short-time work is to reduce employees' working hours by 10 to 15 percent, although the 20 percent mark should not be exceeded. According to Frankfurter Rundschau, the company sees no reason to cut jobs and plans to keep the Reutlingen location in the long term.

Industry situation and outlook

The signs of an increase in short-time work in the mechanical engineering industry cannot be viewed in isolation. A current economic survey by the VDMA shows that around a third of mechanical engineers in southwest Germany expect an increasing need for short-time work. Dr. Mathias Kammüller, Chairman of the VDMA, is cautiously optimistic about a possible turn in the economic situation in the second half of the year, although the survey also points to market uncertainties and production stagnation. Despite the slight increase in incoming orders of two percent in the first quarters of the year, the decline in sales will remain clearly noticeable in many areas, according to Machine Market.

The industrial landscape is not only struggling with a persistently high tax burden and bureaucracy, but also with the increasingly urgent shortage of skilled workers, which is likely to increase in the coming years. Despite the challenges, there are efforts among companies to retain their core workforce and to use short-time work as a way to avoid layoffs. In March 2025, over 3,200 employees in the industry were already on short-time work.

Conclusion

The situation at Wafios is a reflection of the challenges facing the engineering industry. While the company takes measures to stabilize it, we will be curious to see how the economy develops in the coming months. There are signs of recovery, but many companies will need to have staying power to overcome the current uncertainty.