Volkswagen is bracing for widespread upheaval. Supervisor Journal, citing inside sources, mentioned Chief Government Officer Oliver Bloom plans to chop as much as 100,000 jobs from the group’s roughly 657,000 staff worldwide.
That is double the earlier headcount discount goal. Just some months in the past, Volkswagen introduced plans to chop round 50,000 positions by 2030, a transfer that was already thought of a historic transfer on the time.
Blume is claimed to have already offered a restructuring plan to the administration committee. One other particular person mentioned the important thing doc deliberately didn’t embody particular numbers to depart room for the way the restructuring would in the end be carried out.
Based on Reuters, Volkswagen declined to touch upon the report, saying: “The related details of the matter will likely be mentioned and accepted by the related authorities. We now have no intention of preempting this course of.”
4 factories dealing with closure
The Supervisor Journal report states that along with job cuts, 4 manufacturing websites may additionally be closed within the medium time period. VW vegetation in Hannover, Zwickau and Emden and Audi’s plant in Neckarsulm in Baden-Württemberg are additionally reportedly affected. Based on the plan, manufacturing at these areas will finish when the fashions at present manufactured there attain the tip of their life cycle.
It’s nonetheless unclear how such large-scale layoffs will likely be applied below labor and collective bargaining legal guidelines. Presently, Volkswagen has a job assure settlement that runs till the tip of 2030, whereas Audi’s contract runs till the tip of 2033.
The group is planning not solely job cuts but additionally a basic overhaul of its organizational construction, the report mentioned. Each Volkswagen’s core manufacturers and part divisions will likely be separated from the group and grow to be unbiased firms. This might make it simpler for Volkswagen to record particular person companies on capital markets sooner or later.
The disaster has been ongoing for years.
The present plan shouldn’t be a bolt out of the blue, however the tentative fruits of a deep structural disaster. Within the first quarter of 2026, the Group’s web revenue decreased by 28% to EUR 1.56 billion, and gross sales decreased by 2% to EUR 75.7 billion.
On the time, Chief Monetary Officer Arno Antlitz issued an uncharacteristically frank warning: “The fee reductions we now have deliberate to this point won’t be sufficient. If we fail to attain this, our future will likely be in danger.”
Including to the strain are U.S. tariffs, which Antlitz says price the group about 4 billion euros a 12 months in further prices. On the similar time, VW reported a 20% drop in first-quarter gross sales in China, its most necessary single market, the place home automakers akin to BYD are rising competitors not solely at house however throughout Europe.
