Volkswagen's brutal reckoning: up to 100,000 jobs on the line as profits crater
Image: BBC News
Volkswagen is drawing up plans that could erase as many as 100,000 jobs from its global workforce — a staggering cut that would reshape the German industrial giant and send shockwaves through Europe's largest economy.
The group, which owns Porsche, Audi, Seat and Skoda alongside the VW brand, had already warned it would axe around 50,000 posts in Germany by 2030. Now that figure looks set to be dwarfed.
In a blunt memo to staff, chief executive Oliver Blume said the company's costs were running about 20% higher than rivals, and that painful reductions were unavoidable. “We need to become more efficient, more robust and simpler. We must reduce our costs,” he wrote.
The numbers behind the crisis are stark. VW's operating profit has collapsed from €22.6bn in 2023 to €19.1bn in 2024, then to just €8.9bn last year.
At the heart of the trouble is China — once VW's most lucrative market. Sales there fell 26% in the first half of the year alone, as slick, low-cost Chinese electric vehicles crowd out the German stalwart. In the US, sales dropped more than 7%, partly because of tariffs on imports introduced by the Trump administration.
Why it matters: VW is not just a car company; it is a pillar of German manufacturing and a symbol of the country's postwar economic miracle. Mass layoffs on this scale would hit suppliers, towns and pensions across the country — and signal how brutally the shift to electric, Chinese-dominated motoring is upending the old order.
“We are currently assessing across all brands, companies and regions how many adjustments are actually necessary,” Blume cautioned, leaving the door open to even deeper cuts.
What's next: Attention now turns to four German factories — in Zwickau, Emden, Hanover and Neckarsulm — that Blume says the company has been “unable to confirm” alternative uses for. Union negotiations are expected to be fierce, and further plant closures cannot be ruled out.