Volkswagen board approves 100,000 job cuts by 2030

Four German plants face uncertain future as VW halves model lineup

Volkswagen said management and unions agreed as part of a cost-cutting plan to cut a further 50,000 positions by 2030, bringing total job losses in the pipeline to 100,000. The company said it had approved a plan that involved “the reduction of about 50,000 jobs,” on top of another 50,000 already agreed.

The number of car models the Volkswagen group produces, which includes the Bentley and Audi brands, will be slashed by half, while four production plants in Germany could also be shuttered within the next eight years. On Thursday, Volkswagen also said management and unions agreed that the future of four German plants — in Hanover, Emden, Zwickau and Neckarsulm — could not be guaranteed into the 2030s. Protesters against proposed VW job cuts demonstrated outside the company’s Zwickau factory in Saxony in July; the plant is one of four at risk of closure.

“It is essential to systematically align workforce levels with economic realities,” Volkswagen said in a statement. “The supervisory board has unanimously approved the executive board’s future plan presented today,” Chief Executive Oliver Blume said. “This is a strong signal for the future of the Volkswagen group.”

Blume was booed last month by staff during a tour of the company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, northern Germany, as part of a company dialogue about the need to address its financial challenges. At the time, his restructuring plans, which were rumoured to envisage increasing the reduction in headcount from 50,000 to 100,000, were yet to be approved by Volkswagen’s supervisory board.

The total of 100,000 cuts will be the largest restructuring ever carried out in the global automotive industry, amounting to about 15% of the carmaker’s employees. Volkswagen employs more than 650,000 people across all its brands, which also include Skoda, Seat, Porsche, Cupra and Lamborghini.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank said the approval of the restructuring plan was a “fundamental breakthrough” and proved investors who believed the carmaker to be “unfixable” were wrong. “The unanimous approval is, in our view, a fundamental breakthrough and a much-better-than feared outcome,” the bank’s analyst said in a note to investors on Friday. “To be clear [the] agreement does not solve Volkswagen’s challenges overnight. Execution remains key. The market debate was never about whether Volkswagen had challenges. It was about whether those challenges could realistically be addressed within Volkswagen’s complex governance structure. [The] agreement does not end that debate, but it provides the strongest evidence yet that the answer may be yes.”

Analysts at Citi called the deal a “brave and rational plan.” “This is a brave plan and a realistic decision for all concerned,” the bank’s analysts said. “Given VW’s German plant competitiveness and lack of global revenue opportunities, VW simply had no other choice. Given VW’s supervisory board structure, this illustrates also the responsibility the workers council has taken for ensuring the long-term survivability of the VW core business in Europe.”

Shares in Volkswagen rose 8% in early trading on Friday. Volkswagen faces increased competition from Chinese automakers in Europe, decreasing sales in China, and US tariffs. The company had been struggling for years with falling profits and overproduction in Europe even before those pressures intensified.

The tough market in China has also hit other carmakers, with BMW cutting its profit guidance for this year because of the disruption caused by the Iran war and the company’s struggles in the Chinese market.