The past few years have been challenging for the European automotive sector – production declines, supply chain disruptions, and intensifying competition from Asian manufacturers have forced many companies to downsize. Now, as the market slowly begins to recover, businesses face a new challenge: how to quickly restore their delivery capacity when skilled specialists are in short supply?
The recent crisis has hit engineering departments particularly hard – many companies suspended development projects and reduced their expert workforce. The issue lies not only in the sheer number of redundancies, but also in the loss of “future-proof jobs” and unique expertise and know-how, which may prove extremely difficult to rebuild. This raises the question of whether the industry will have sufficient resources to meet emerging challenges once the market rebounds. While the automotive sector is expected to gradually regain momentum, the risk of a serious skills gap is becoming increasingly apparent.
The ACEA Economic & Market Report – Full Year 2024 highlights that the European automotive industry faced one of the most severe crises in decades during 2022–2023. Car production in the European Union fell by 6.2% in 2024 compared to the previous year, with the report emphasising that the sector operated under “less certainty than the rest of the industry.” Key factors included semiconductor shortages, rising energy costs, and inflationary pressure.
Data from CLEPA (European Association of Automotive Suppliers) also confirms the scale of the challenges. In 2024, automotive suppliers reported 54,000 job losses – more than during the pandemic years. Moreover, in just the first quarter of 2025, a further 10,000 jobs were cut. These figures show that cuts in engineering and production functions were not temporary, but a sign of deep restructuring within the industry.
Still, data from 2025 shows that the situation is beginning to shift. According to KPMG’s Global Automotive Executive Survey 2025, manufacturers are once again increasing investment in strategic areas such as electromobility, software development, and ADAS systems. This not only signals a rebound in the market, but also a surge in demand for highly skilled engineers, especially in fields such as e-mobility, lighting, and interior design.
Companies that downsized during the crisis now face a pressing challenge. The growing volume of orders for electromobility and ADAS-related projects requires experienced engineers – but many organisations lack them.
Hiring from scratch is both lengthy and costly, while delays risk lost contracts or declining customer trust. There is also the danger that new hires may not adapt to the demands of a complex engineering environment or fail to meet OEM expectations.
Compounding the issue, many professionals who left the automotive industry during the downturn have since found stable roles in other sectors – and do not plan to return. This deepens the skills gap even further.
As the number of new projects increases, companies are increasingly turning to alternatives to traditional recruitment and the expansion of internal R&D departments. One of the most effective solutions is nearshoring – outsourcing engineering services to specialised external providers located in the same or nearby geographical regions.
This enables collaboration with teams operating in the same time zone, who understand European quality standards and regulations, while offering greater flexibility than internal R&D functions.
Partnering with an engineering company such as Endego ensures:
With nearshoring, manufacturers and suppliers can respond rapidly to market recovery – avoiding lengthy recruitment cycles and minimising the risks of staff shortages.
The automotive market is entering a new phase of transformation – moving from crisis, through recovery, towards dynamic growth driven by electrification and software-defined vehicles (SDVs). In this environment, flexible engineering collaboration models are becoming a cornerstone of competitive strategy.
Nearshoring enables companies to adapt seamlessly to changing market conditions, without excessive costs or long recruitment processes. It is not only a way to quickly fill staffing gaps – above all, it is a guarantee of project continuity and quality, which now define manufacturers’ market positions.
At Endego, we have been supporting the automotive industry for years, delivering comprehensive design and engineering services – from concept and simulation to software development and series production implementation. We offer services under the following cooperation models:
Our teams provide expertise across key domains, including:
📩 Contact us today to discover how nearshoring can boost your engineering capacity, safeguard project continuity, and ensure the highest delivery quality.
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