{"id":52714,"date":"2026-07-11T07:39:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T07:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/52714\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T07:39:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T07:39:37","slug":"volkswagen-sales-slide-further-as-carmaker-weighs-mass-job-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/52714\/","title":{"rendered":"Volkswagen sales slide further as carmaker weighs mass job cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Volkswagen’s bosses want to drastically cut production capacity and trim its range of models (Jens SCHL\u00dcTER) <\/p>\n

Volkswagen on Friday said that a slide in sales accelerated in the second quarter, as the crisis-hit German auto group reportedly considers cutting up to 100,000 jobs worldwide. <\/p>\n

Overall vehicle deliveries fell almost nine percent in the April-June period from a year earlier thanks to plunging demand in China, VW said.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Sales had fallen just four percent in the first quarter. <\/p>\n

“The situation in China remains challenging, and we were unable to escape a clearly declining overall market,” said VW executive Marco Schubert in a statement.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

This was “despite initial positive momentum from our newly introduced, locally developed electric vehicles there,” he added.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Europe’s largest carmaker has come under intense pressure from US tariffs, slimmer profit margins from electric cars and above all intense competition in China, the world’s largest auto market. <\/p>\n

The 10-brand group, which apart from its namesake also includes marques such as Audi and Porsche, is planning to lay off at least 50,000 in Germany by 2030.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But recent media reports have suggested the firm is targeting cuts of up to 100,000 worldwide as well as the closure of four plants in Germany. <\/p>\n

Germany’s powerful IG Metall union on Thursday organised protests at VW sites across the country, as management presented their cost-cutting plans to the supervisory board.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

There was no major announcement Thursday, with VW simply reiterating previous plans to cut capacity and its model line-up, and analysts said talks would likely take time. <\/p>\n

“For now, people are sharpening their swords and firming up their positions,” auto analyst Stefan Bratzel of the Centre of Automotive Management told AFP. <\/p>\n

“This is going to drag on for months and months.” <\/p>\n

– Slimming down – <\/p>\n

Volkswagen executives have repeatedly stressed the need for the company to slim down as collapsing sales in China have started to look less like a blip and more like a new normal. <\/p>\n

It is a crisis hitting the whole German car industry — BMW said Friday its second-quarter car sales had fallen almost five percent worldwide, dragged down by a 30.2-percent plunge in China. <\/p>\n

Chinese brands are also threatening Volkswagen on its home turf. <\/p>\n

The likes of Geely, Xpeng and BYD took a nine percent share of the European market in March, according to automotive intelligence firm Dataforce, up from virtually zero three years ago. <\/p>\n

“The Chinese are coming to Europe, also building factories which are highly efficient,” Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume warned in April. “We cannot compete with underutilised plants.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volkswagen’s bosses want to drastically cut production capacity and trim its range of models (Jens SCHL\u00dcTER) Volkswagen on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20947],"tags":[42471,42472,5356,8369],"class_list":["post-52714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-volkswagen","tag-nine-percent","tag-stefan-bratzel","tag-volkswagen","tag-vw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}