Zeiss Aalen: Austerity measures despite sales growth - what's coming now?

Zeiss Aalen: Austerity measures despite sales growth - what's coming now?

The technology group Carl Zeiss is facing painful job cuts in Baden-Württemberg. Despite sales growth of 8 percent in the 2023/2024 financial year, the demand for high -quality glasses has dropped drastically, which will lead to layoffs at the Aalen location. Uwe Frey, the chairman of the works council in Aalen, described the developments as "slap in the face" for the employees who have been worried about their future for months. As reports [merkur.de] (https://www.merkur.de/wirtschaft/carl-zeiss-stellen-stellen-aalen-maufsum-SchauchtSpfahr-zukunzun- 93478002.html), the employees fear that more than half of the weekly production volume will be dropped from currently only 20,000 glasses to just 20,000.

The difficult situation on the market means that the group has to be implemented urgently previously announced. 1,400 employees must now fear while IG Metall has already announced resistance to the plans. "The employees are totally shocked," said Heike Madan from IG Metall Aalen and spoke of misunderstood decisions. Despite the difficult prospects, Zeiss is also planning to set up a new location for its measurement technology division in Aalen-Ebnat, which is supposed to create a further 2,500 jobs in the long term. However, many employees of other locations of the company are planned for this, so that it remains unclear how many new jobs will actually arise, such as bw24.de reported.

The continued calm of consumption demands its toll: While the glasses market decreases noticeably, other parts of Zeiss see themselves in a growth course. Zeiss is now investing in research and development in order to expand the innovative strength and thus create new jobs in the long term. The company also relies on increasing the number of employees in profitable areas, while at the same time uncertain times for the glasses division in Aalen.