Volkswagen job losses
Volkswagen has secured agreements for more than 28,000 employee departures through to 2030 as the company accelerates restructuring to slash costs and resize operations amid weaker demand and intensifying competition.
Oliver Blume, group chief executive officer, will inform shareholders on June 18 that the workforce reduction programme is on schedule. The figure compares with 25,000 agreed departures disclosed in November 2025.
VW expects its headcount in Germany, including its Saxony and Osnabruck sites, to be reduced by about 19,000 employees by the end of this year. It continues to target roughly 50,000 job reductions in Germany by 2030 across its VW, Audi, Porsche and Cariad divisions.
The group has generated sustainable cost reductions of about €1 billion, or around NZ$2b, through labour agreements and workforce reductions, says Blume, pictured. It’s aiming for annual net savings of €6b by the end of the decade.
He adds VW has absorbed “double-digit billions of euros” in headwinds stemming from a deteriorating market environment, limiting the impact on reported earnings.
As part of the overhaul, the company is resizing its global manufacturing footprint from capacity to support more than 12 million units annually before the Covid-19 pandemic to about nine million units per year.
Over the past two years, it has removed capacity equivalent to about two million vehicles from its network in Europe and China. The carmaker is preparing additional reductions totalling 500,000 units in China.
