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Production at VW (in March 2019)
Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
At Volkswagen, jobs can only be cut in a “socially acceptable way” because the company will secure jobs until 2029.
Now the car manufacturer and its works council have agreed on further steps.
Accordingly, existing offers for partial retirement will now also be opened for those born in 1964.
In addition, older employees are to be offered new offers for early retirement.
Volkswagen AG announced this on Sunday in Wolfsburg.
The »Handelsblatt« had previously reported on it and wrote about up to 5,000 posts that were available for disposition.
How many jobs are saved actually depends on who accepts the company's offers.
In an internal employee information sheet, the works council calculates that "a low four-digit number of employees" could stop using the additional partial retirement programs.
In addition, experience has shown that up to 900 employees could retire at short notice with the new early retirement regulations.
A VW spokeswoman and a spokesperson for the works council unanimously emphasized that this was not a new round of job cuts.
The background to the resolutions is the so-called »fixed costs program«, with which fixed costs in the company are to fall by a total of 5 percent by 2023.
Before Christmas, the VW supervisory board had principally given backing to CEO Herbert Diess for this project.
The management's commitment to implement potential new savings only within the framework of existing programs was seen as a stage victory for the works council.
No exit date for the internal combustion engine
"The company and the works council agreed at the end of 2020 to implement further savings efforts by 2023," writes the works council.
“The regulations explained here only apply until the end of 2021 for the time being.” The current agreements also include an extension of the so-called “Level Freeze” program, which is used to freeze upper staffing limits.
This is an "important lever to accelerate the company's internal transformation, since the positions must first be filled via the internal labor market."
In a strategy up to 2030, VW recently stipulated that the proportion of e-cars should grow faster than previously planned.
A complete end for the combustion engine is not planned for the time being.
Icon: The mirror
chs / dpa
