Kromberg & Schubert in Zhabeni: 2,000 New Jobs for Audi, Exports Above €400 Million and Macedonian Managers Replacing German Ones — What Bitola Gains and What Stays Uncertain
On October 15 Prime Minister Mickoski announced the new investment in the Zhabeni industrial zone: the plant will make cable harness systems for a new Audi model, with 2,000 jobs planned over the next four years.
Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced at a press conference on October 15 the new Kromberg & Schubert investment in the Zhabeni industrial zone near Bitola. The plant will make cable harness systems for a new Audi model, with planned output of more than 3,000 harnesses a day, and 2,000 new jobs will open over the next four years. The company has already completed three investment projects in Zhabeni.
According to Mickoski, the company currently employs more than 5,000 people in Bitola and more than 1,700 in Skopje; commercial director Gjorgji Trenkovski said Bitola has about 5,300. Trenkovski also said the company will move “from German managers to Macedonian managers,” wants project management transferred to Bitola, and that hiring will start from the domestic labor market, with the larger foreign-worker quota considered if positions stay unfilled. From next year it expects exports above €400 million. Mickoski says wages for highly qualified staff are more than 80% above the national average.
What is not public: the value of the investment is not stated, and the published figures do not add up. About 7,000 current employees plus 2,000 new ones gives about 9,000, not the 10,000 cited as the total. It is also not explained how many domestic firms will become suppliers, which, according to the national automotive strategy, is what brings knowledge transfer and a bigger benefit for the local economy.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · October 16, 2026
