According to a report, an internal conversation reveals that VW is targeting administrative savings. However, according to the company, there will be no “general reduction target in the number of employees”.
According to the “Handelsblatt”, the planned savings program at the car manufacturer Volkswagen includes significant job cuts in administration. In an internal podcast with Group Human Resources Director Gunnar Kilian, VW brand boss Thomas Schäfer spoke of a savings target for personnel costs in the so-called indirect area of one fifth, the newspaper reported. The Wolfsburg-based administrative apparatus includes around 40,000 office employees in the brand and group. The company is concerned with costs, not people, Kilian emphasized. A company spokeswoman did not want to comment further on the information in detail.
No “compromises in our job security”
In the Volkswagen brand’s intended program, all costs and subject areas would be critically examined, the spokeswoman said. The company will continue to use the opportunities “along the demographic curve” – i.e. instruments such as voluntary partial retirement. “There is no general reduction target for the number of employees at Volkswagen,” she said. The employee representatives also did not want to comment on “speculation”. “The works council is not commenting on the confidential negotiations in terms of content or with regard to the further schedule,” said a works council spokesman. “We cannot make collective bargaining cuts or compromises in our job security.”
VW brand boss Thomas Schäfer wants to improve the results of the Wolfsburg-based company’s chronically low-return core brand with a savings program. By the end of 2026, a total of ten billion euros should be collected so that VW Passenger Cars can achieve the targeted return on sales of 6.5 percent – most recently it was 3.4 percent in the first nine months of 2023. Schäfer had already indicated that, among other things, there should be savings through cross-brand production in the so-called “Core” brand group. In addition to VW cars, this also includes Seat/Cupra, Skoda and the light Volkswagen commercial vehicles (VWN).
Details about the savings program are not yet available. According to “Handelsblatt”, the negotiations with the employee representatives are likely to drag on until next year. However, all the necessary measures are already in place for 2024, but those for the following years still have to be finalized.
Source: Stern
