Berlin (Reuters) – According to works council boss Daniela Cavallo, Volkswagen is on the home stretch in negotiations over an austerity program.
The key points could be decided before Christmas, she said on Wednesday at a works meeting in Wolfsburg, according to an internal communication available to Reuters. “And I am very confident that we will succeed.” VW’s top management is meeting in Berlin in December and the austerity program could be on the agenda.
VW brand boss Thomas Schäfer said that essential parts of the program had already been decided and were being implemented. “One thing is clear: In the future, we will have to make do with fewer people at Volkswagen in many corners,” he emphasized. Management and the works council are currently negotiating the efficiency program, which is expected to bring in a total of ten billion euros. It is unclear how many jobs in total the group will lose. Cavallo spoke in front of thousands of VW employees in favor of further expanding partial retirement and opening it up to employees born in 1967 from the beginning of 2024. At the same time, she emphasized that job security must be maintained. The agreement is valid at VW until 2029.
Human resources director Gunnar Kilian said that personnel costs in the indirect area – i.e. in administration – should fall by a fifth. Around 40,000 office employees work at VW in this area. The majority of the savings should be achieved through procedural and structural levers, said Kilian.
According to VW brand board member Schäfer, this is, among other things, about faster development times and a stronger one digitalization, lower product costs and shorter manufacturing times. The development time for a vehicle should be reduced to 36 months, from the current 50 months. The aim is to reduce product costs and optimize the product packages for customers. In addition, VW is forgoing the construction of the “Campus Sandkamp” and is instead investing in existing buildings for technical development.
Volkswagen is currently feeling the effects of the global slowdown in car demand. Cavallo said that at the main plant in Wolfsburg – the group’s largest plant – just 453,000 vehicles had been produced by the end of November. “So we can all just keep our fingers crossed that we have a good year-end spurt so that the 500,000 mark at least comes into sight.” In 2021 and 2022, production in Wolfsburg reached historic lows of around 400,000 vehicles, also due to the semiconductor shortage in the wake of the corona pandemic. Before the pandemic, however, there were an average of just under 780,000 cars.
CEO Oliver Blume has set a return of up to ten percent for the multi-brand group by 2027, while the core Volkswagen brand should generate a return of 6.5 percent by 2026 – around three percentage points more than recently. Operating profit is expected to increase by ten billion euros by then. Corresponding performance programs are also running at the Wolfsburg car manufacturer’s other brands as well as at the software subsidiary Cariad, which got off to a rocky start.
(Report by Christina Amann, edited by Ralf Banser. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and economics) or [email protected] (for companies and markets)
Selected lever products on Volkswagen (VW) vz.
With knock-outs, speculative investors can participate disproportionately in price movements. Simply select the lever you want and we will show you suitable open-end products on Volkswagen (VW) vz.
The leverage must be between 2 and 20
Advertising