The VW brand is considered a restructuring case; brand boss Thomas Schäfer (53) is supposed to improve the result by 10 billion euros according to the will of CEO Oliver Blume (55). Otherwise it will be difficult with the 6.5 percent return on sales announced for 2026. An important lever for saving costs is personnel costs: According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) savings of 20 percent in the “indirect area” are currently being discussed at VW. This refers to employees in development and sales, administrative areas and production preparation. According to the FAZ, around 4,000 jobs could be lost.
Like manager magazine already reported in September
, Schäfer is planning a major cut overall: 16,000 employees will leave VW in the next five years, for reasons of age alone and including those indirectly employed. Schäfer’s suggestion: You don’t have to fill these jobs, and you might even have to leave them early. That would be a break in VW tradition, defended by the works council with boss Daniela Cavallo (48).
Volkswagen denied this when asked
When asked by the FAZ, VW denied: “We firmly reject alleged savings targets in the indirect area. There is no blanket target across the administrative area.” The works council in Wolfsburg says that they are not commenting on “the confidential negotiations either in terms of content or with regard to the further schedule”.
Up to now, things have usually worked out at VW in such a way that most of the employees who were dismissed with expensive partial retirement programs were replaced. This is also why the announced billion-dollar targets could not be achieved. That won’t happen this time, CEO Blume made it clear internally, according to information from manager magazin. Perhaps a quarter of the positions could be filled with “modern, skilled workers,” a company executive quoted him as saying. But not any more.