(Updated at 14:25) Volkswagen squeezes the brakes. The automotive group is aiming for a massive reduction in its workforce: 30 fewer employees worldwide by 2020 out of a total workforce of over 600 (5%). After the rumors published by Handelsblatt, the plan - the first after the dieselgate - was presented in Wolfsburg on Friday morning. It will mainly concern Germany with a cut of 23 jobs in the country.
Volkswagen chairman Herbert Diess presented the plan for the future, the result of the agreement with the works council which provides for the cut of 30.000 global jobs, of which 23.000 in Germany. VW will instead invest 3,5 billion euros in electromobility and digitization, with 9.000 new jobs in the software sector. “We are radically restructuring VW to make it ready for the great change that the automotive sector will face,” added Diess.
“A big step forward, one of the biggest in the company's history”. “There will be no production-related layoffs,” Diess explained.
With the measures contained in the pact, VW plans to improve its operating result by 3,7 billion euros a year until 2020, according to what the company reported and reported by the Handelsblatt, with 3 billion saved in the German plants and 700 million in those abroad. The entire Volkswagen group employs 624.000 people, 282.000 of whom are in Germany. The cut of the 30.000 jobs will be accompanied by social safety nets such as progressive early retirement, explained the president of the VW brand Herbert Diess at the conference in Wolfsburg. No details were provided on how the restructuring (which in addition to the 30.000 layoffs foresees 9.000 hirings in the software sector) will affect the plants.
Investments of 3,5 billion for electric cars and digitalisation – "Electromobility and digitization" are the keys with which Volkswagen wants to react to the dieselgate scandal and "equip itself to face the transformation that is affecting the automotive sector", according to the words of the company's top managers, Matthias Mueller and Herbert Diess. Alongside the job cuts, the pact for the future signed with the union provides for investments of 3,5 billion and 9.000 new hires in new technologies to develop electric cars and services such as car-sharing and ride-sharing. No details were provided on how this breakthrough will affect production, but according to the Bloomberg agency the company has agreed to produce two all-electric cars at its German plants in Wolfsburg and Zwickau. Yesterday, however, is the news that from April 2017 the Dresden plant, with its 525 employees, will produce an electric Golf model.
Shares are up 0,5% in Frankfurt as of 14:25pm.
