Continental intends to increase its employee count by around 7,000 in 2014, assuming the market develops accordingly. This would bring the number on its payroll to approximately 185,000 by the end of the year. By the end of 2013, the number of employees had climbed to roughly 178,000.
“The larger workforce reflects our business success. In 2014 alone, we are expecting to increase sales by 5% to around 35 billion euros. Alongside the expansion of production capacities, it is new markets and new technologies that are driving our growth – and this applies to the workforce as well. We are thus well-advised to position ourselves as globally as possible to comply with our strategic dimension of better serving customers by working in the market for the market,” explained Elke Strathmann, Continental executive board member responsible for human resources. “In the last few years, we have broadened our base both product wise and geographically. This has made talent management and cultural development all the more important and we are taking this into account.”
In 2013, Continental created approximately 1,800 jobs in China, approximately 1,500 jobs in North America and approximately 1,500 jobs in Romania. There were also close to 1,400 jobs added in Germany.
“Our goal in 2014 is to further develop in the growth markets. By itself, the planned acquisition of Veyance Technologies Inc. would add another 9,000 or so staff to the 185,000 already envisioned,” noted Strathmann.
