7:35 am, June 29, 2026
Volkwagen is set to step up its cost cutting plans, with as many as 100,000 jobs likely to be axed as part of increased money saving measures.
The German manufacturer is looking to make cost savings worth €11bn (£9.5bn) by 2030, with four car plants in Germany expected to be put under review, ahead of production ending altogether.
The measures would mean double the number of job losses than had previously been anticipated and would see positions axed across a number of VW Group brands.
Bosses previously said that 50,000 jobs were due to be cut by 2030 across the group in Germany.
At the time, chief executive Oliver Blume told shareholders that the company was on track to make savings of more than €6bn (£5.2bn) by 2030.
He has said that some 28,000 agreements for staff to leave by 2030 had already been made, which relates to those at the Germany headquarters,
‘The transformation of the entire company is continuing to pick up speed,’ the boss had said.
‘With these programmes we are methodically addressing all cost categories across all brands.’
He also said the group was working to ‘address the reduction of overcapacities in our production network’ by bringing down global targets from 12 million vehicles to nine million.
It comes after reporting that vehicle deliveries had dropped by 10% in the US and 8% in China in 2025.
It said this was because of ‘challenging market conditions’ including tariffs on US imports and increased competition in China. Despite this, deliveries rose by 4.5% in Europe to almost four million vehicles.
Volkswagen reportedly has around 625,000 staff around the world, meaning its job-cutting plans would shed about 16% of the total workforce if they went ahead.
Reports said that details of the new plan were set to be presented to the company’s supervisory board on July 9.
A spokeswoman for Volkswagen said it was not commenting on the speculation.
