The “Accelerate Forward” performance program is intended to increase the return on investment for the core VW brand to 6.5 percent by 2026. In order to achieve this, the group and the works council have agreed on a joint key points paper. Among other things, it envisages reducing personnel costs, especially in the area of administration, by 20 percent, as manager magazin had already reported. The job cuts should be socially acceptable and there will be no redundancies for operational reasons.
At the same time, employees should also be offered termination agreements if necessary. Partial retirement models will also be extended to those born in 1967, Volkswagen announced. The positions that will be eliminated in the future will not be filled or will only be filled “in exceptional cases.” The hiring freeze will be maintained.
In this way, a contribution to earnings of four billion euros should be achieved in the coming year. According to the key points paper, the company is concentrating on performance-enhancing and cost-saving measures along the three focal points of the program: optimizing material and product costs, reducing fixed and manufacturing costs and increasing profits. By 2026, according to the three-year savings program, the positive contribution to earnings should increase to a total of ten billion euros.
“We are now strengthening the economic foundation for success in the coming years,” said VW brand boss Schäfer. “In the past few weeks, we have taken a big step forward in designing the most comprehensive program the brand has ever launched.” The performance program is also important in order to be able to withstand the increasingly tough competition in an extremely demanding market environment. Schäfer emphasized that the agreement with the employees was an important step in this process.
“We have agreed with the employee representatives to now also offer partial retirement to all employees born in 1967, especially in the administrative area Volkswagen AG to reduce personnel as much as possible along the demographic curve,” added Human Resources Director Gunnar Kilian. With the agreement reached, the group will create the necessary flexibility from 2024 to successfully secure the company’s profitability and thus also employment. “The year 2024 is likely to be very challenging , especially for our volume brands,” added the chairwoman of the VW works council, Daniela Cavallo.