Bosch chief declares jobs are safe

THE UK boss of the world’s largest automotive supplier has reassured his staff about their jobs despite the car industry facing a bloodbath.

Car makers including Renault, Nissan, Bentley and Aston Martin have unveiled plans to slash up to 20,000 jobs in recent days.

But Steffen Hoffmann, Bosch’s UK president, is committed to keeping jobs in this country, despite furloughing staff at two factories making industrial machinery that were closed due to a slump in demand.

‘We’re not planning to have redundancies,’ he told The Mail on Sunday. ‘The automotive industry is going through a difficult period worldwide, but that was the case even before Covid-19.

We believe we will be back – not necessarily at the old level. The question is how long will it take?’

Bosch has 400,000 staff worldwide, with 5,000 of those in the UK across 40 sites.

The company’s sales dipped 2.6 per cent to £3.2billion last year. The car industry including spare parts accounts for half of its UK business.