The Stellantis car factory in the Slovak city of Trnava will be laying off fewer people than the 500 predicted by some unions as it transitions from producing combustion engine vehicles to electric, Michal Nič, a spokesman at Stellantis, announced.

While Slovakia’s four car factories currently employ around 16,000 people and the car industry provides almost 200,000 jobs, experts believe the transition to electric, as well as digitalisation and automation, will lead to job losses ranging as high as 70,000.

At the factory in Trnava, however, around 360 people will be laid off, while more will be recruited following the switch to electric vehicle production, Nič said on Tuesday.

Thus, numbers are not as drastic as the 500 people – one in seven employees – Milan Minárech, head of the trade union OZ KOVO Stellantis said he expected to be laid off from 1 April.

For the sector, too, employee numbers may not change as dramatically as anticipated, according to

Monika Martišková from the Central European Labour Studies Institute (CELSI).

“In companies, skills upgrading will take place. Companies will have to become more digitised or automated, and people will still be needed, but they won’t be needed in production but rather in operating technology. The number of jobs will not necessarily change, but the structure will,” she said.

(Michal Hudec | EURACTIV.sk)