(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s Stiebel Eltron GmbH plans to eliminate jobs as sales of its heat pumps remain below expectations.
“Yes, we have to cut staff,” Ulrich Stiebel, the co-owner, told reporters on Monday during a meeting with Economy Minister Robert Habeck in Holzminden. The reductions won’t be on the scale of the 1,000 job cuts reported by Handelsblatt last week, Stiebel said.
The manufacturer — one of the leading makers of renewable-energy heating systems with around 6,000 employees — had expected steady sales growth on government plants to slash carbon dioxide emissions from heating. But Germany is falling short of a goal to install 500,000 heat pumps annually, with only 90,000 devices sold by the country‘s manufacturers in the first half of the year.
That’s despite generous subsidies for the technology, with the industry blaming high electricity prices for the development. A law aimed at banning fossil-fired boilers was watered down after pushback from homeowners.
According to Habeck’s ministry, Stiebel Eltron will receive €18.6 million ($20.3 million) in funding to support the production of heat pumps.
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