Volkswagen has agreed on further steps to cut jobs with the works council of the car manufacturer. Accordingly, existing offers for partial retirement will now also be opened for those born in 1964. In addition, new offers for early retirement are to be presented to those born between 1956 and 1960. Volkswagen announced this on Sunday in Wolfsburg. The “Handelsblatt” had previously reported on it. The key points apply to the main brand VW with the six West German plants with around 120,000 employees.
How many jobs are saved in this way depends on how many employees ultimately accept the offers. In internal employee information that is available to the DPA, the works council calculates that “a low four-digit number of employees” could stop using the additional partial retirement programs. In addition, experience has shown that up to 900 employees could retire at short notice with the new early retirement regulations. The Reuters news agency, citing insiders, reports that the agreements could cut around 3,000 to 4,000 jobs. A VW spokeswoman and a spokesperson for the works council unanimously emphasized that this was not a new round of job cuts.
The amount of the savings depends on how many employees accept the new offers. According to Reuters calculations, they are likely to be in the order of 400 million euros, assuming that 4,000 jobs will be cut. With the savings, the carmaker wants for the expensive Changeover on Electric cars Reduce costs.
The hiring freeze will be extended
The background to the resolutions is the so-called “fixed costs program”, with which fixed costs in the company are to fall by a total of 5 percent by 2023. The VW supervisory board had given CEO Herbert Diess (62) back in principle for this project before Christmas. The management’s commitment to implement potential new savings only within the framework of existing programs was seen as a stage victory for the works council. At Volkswagen, jobs can only be cut in a “socially acceptable” way because the company will secure jobs until 2029.
The current agreements also include an extension of the hiring freeze until the end of the year. This is an “important lever to accelerate the internal transformation of the company, since the positions must first be filled via the internal labor market”.
Volkswagen Board Member for Human Resources Gunnar Kilian (46) said: “We are strengthening the internal transformation of our workforce and building positions in the future areas – both through qualification and targeted external staffing. Against this background, we are also increasing the qualification budget by 40 million euros to 200 million Euro.” The hiring freeze does not apply to the future areas of electrification, digitalization and battery cell development. New hires from outside are also possible here. The general works council chairman Bernd Osterloh (64) was satisfied with the agreements. “The works council has made provision that the departures do not take place on the back of the other employees,” he explained.