Volkswagen surprises with tougher austerity measures, 50,000 jobs gone

A bang at Volkswagen. The supervisory board meeting at the start of the week ends with a shock. The board declares the old business model dead! 50,000 jobs in Germany will be lost at VW, Audi and Porsche.

Renovation plans for the future

The board of the Wolfsburg car manufacturer Volkswagen considers the current business model to be no longer sustainable. At a supervisory board meeting late on Monday evening, far-reaching cuts at German locations were announced. The former market leader is struggling with falling margins and competition from Asia. The goal is to reduce global production capacity to nine million vehicles per year.

Plants and works council in focus

As the South German newspaper reports, internal papers from consulting firms are also causing unrest among the workforce. Traditional factories such as Emden, Hanover and Zwickau are in focus due to high costs. The Emden site, where the ID.7 electric car is built, costs around 600 million euros annually. Production there had to be paused several times due to weak sales. The group is now planning to cut 50,000 jobs at VW, Audi and Porsche in Germany alone.

This should be done through partial retirement and severance pay, as dismissals for operational reasons are contractually excluded until 2030. The previous efficiency programs are not sufficient for investments in electromobility and software. To ensure international competitiveness, VW is planning three focal points by 2030: development of 50 models for China, expansion of AI and connectivity and testing of the production of military transport vehicles in Osnabrück – but deliberately without battle tanks, as was previously rumored in the rumor mill.

The future of the locations remains open

The works council demands that job security be adhered to and rejects factory closures. Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Olaf Lies speaks out against the closure of European plants and suggests models with Chinese partners. The state holds 20 percent of the voting rights in the group.