Alexandre
In a recent article published by Automotive News Europe, a controversy emerges about the recruitment practices of Stellantisraising concerns about the impact on the European automotive industry. Under the headline "Stellantis hires €50,000 engineers in Brazil and India to cut costs", the article highlights the company's strategy of move a growing proportion of its engineering resources to countries with lower labor costssuch as Morocco, India and Brazil.
According to the information we have gathered, engineers in Europe and the USA can earn salaries ranging from 150,000 $ to 200,000 $ per year, including benefits. On the other hand, Stellantis now seems to prefer recruiting in countries where the cost per employee is around €50,000. (i.e. around 53,000 $) or less per year. This decision comes at a time when automakers are facing increased competition and falling demand, particularly in the electric vehicle sector.
Stellantis' determination to optimize labor costs is intensifying as the company strives to produce more affordable vehicles, as illustrated by the recent launch of the Citroën e-C3, offered at an attractive price of €23,300. This cost-cutting strategy is also accentuated by the need to remain competitive in an ever-changing global market, marked by the emergence of new Chinese players.
Yet this focus on labor cost savings is not without its challenges. Problems have already been reported during the development of certain projects, such as the "Smart Car" platform, initially designed by Tata Consulting Services in India. French and Italian engineers had to be mobilized to solve technical problems.This shows the potential challenges of outsourcing certain critical functions.
Fake news or reality? Our exclusive figures confirm the trend described in the Automotive News Europe article. From 2021 to 2023, a 12 % decrease in the number of employees in Europe and North America was recorded, while an increase of 4 % in South America and 30 % in the India/China region was observed. In total, this represents an 11 % decrease in the total number of employees worldwide, despite 24 % growth in revenues over the same period.
This headcount reduction, coupled with increasing pressure on costs, is simply a response to the double-digit profitability target set out in the Dare Forward 2030 plan.
This really is becoming the world's worst automotive group...
If you want to make low-cost cars, you look for low-cost engineers. But I didn't know that Fiat wanted to become a low-cost brand.
Until now, Fiat has always been affordable, except for electric models, without the need to source engineers from countries where salaries are much lower. Stellantis is definitely not doing Italian brands any good.
There's been an article in the papers about Peugeot for a few years now, they've closed design offices in France and set up a design office in Brazil I think, so they're continuing, it's nothing new.