There are signs of mass layoffs at Volkswagen. Manager Magazine On Thursday, citing its own information, the automaker announced that it could cut up to 30,000 jobs in Germany alone in the “medium term.” For its investment plan for the next five years, CFO Arno Antlitz plans to further reduce funding by 10 billion euros to 160 billion euros. Most recently, VW set a budget of 170 billion euros for 2025 to 2029.
According to the report, 4,000 to 6,000 employees in the research and development division could be laid off. The division accounts for about 10 percent of the country’s approximately 130,000 jobs. Partial layoffs and severance pay alone are not enough, the company said. Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blum announced the plan in a statement. dpa “It is considered realistic in the long term in small circles,” he said on Thursday. News of the steep cuts comes just days before the IGM union and the company are set to begin negotiations next week.
She was again belligerent in the wake of the “Volkswagen rumors.” “No matter how much the top management creates the illusion of downsizing,” IGM negotiator Thorsten Gröger said in a union statement Thursday, “one thing is clear: we cannot accept mass layoffs and site closures.” The first thing the company’s board of directors must do is make clear its plans at the negotiating table next week. If Volkswagen “takes the axe to the workers (…), the employees will give us the right answer,” the union official said.
According to IGM, just last week the company terminated “all existing collective agreements”. This included the job security that had been in place since 1994, which now allows layoffs for operational reasons. The union had already warned that the first plant closures in Germany were imminent. Gröger now explained that he would “fight for every plant and every job” and once again called for “a viable future concept for all locations”. Clear-cutting within the group does not generate prospects.
