Opel, which PSA bought from General Motors for $2.6 billion, has made losses for almost 20 years, and Tavares has been frustrated in his bid to cut high production costs.
FRANKFURT: PSA Group has demanded 3,700 staff cuts by 2020 in Germany and a process of buyouts and early retirement has already resulted in a reduction of about 2,000 positions, Opel‘s works council chief Wolfgang Schaefer-Klug said.
“Around 2,000 have already agreed to leave, and we will likely see a further 2,000 people accept packages,” Schaefer-Klug said.
“I’m not worried about meeting the cost targets, the scale of the uptake of buyout offers means it is now a question of whether we have enough staff to manage the current workload,” Schaefer-Klug said at a press conference on Friday.
“What is missing is a clear vision for the way forward at Opel in terms of utilized production capacity and job guarantees beyond 2020,” he said.
Opel, which PSA bought from General Motors for $2.6 billion, has made losses for almost 20 years, and Tavares has been frustrated in his bid to cut high production costs.
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PSA has given Opel until 2020 to return to profit as part of a recovery plan aimed at shifting the brand’s model lineup onto PSA’s architecture, with the French parent pursuing 1.7 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in savings from its purchase.