But as the scale of its problems continued to grow, that number reached 50,000 by this March. Then at the end of June, a German magazine reported that 100,000 jobs will now go by 2030, and this is unthinkable: the closing of four German factories, something that has never been done in its history.
But Volkswagen’s public statement the restructuring plan makes no mention of job losses or factory closings – at least not directly.
But it does require a heavily edited model line-up, with half as many cars as those on offer across all brands. These will “concentrate on the most attractive market segments”, VW Group says, which probably means mostly crossovers, now as beloved by European car buyers as their US counterparts. To make things easier for factories, “offering complexity — for example, the number of available equipment options — will be reduced by up to 75 percent.”
The proposal also detailed a mismatch between global demand for VW Group products at 9 million vehicles per year and the company’s capacity to produce 10 million vehicles per year (although VW has reduced its capacity by 2 million units since COVID).
So while the plan doesn’t explicitly say that VW will cut jobs and close factories, it does involve them building fewer cars that sound less distinctive, less labor intensive.
Or he did. Assuming Reuters’ sources are correct, it’s time for Blume and his colleagues to think about something else.
