By Christina Amann, Christoph Steitz and Mrinmay Dey <\/p>\n
BERLIN\/FRANKFURT\/MEXICO CITY, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Volkswagen’s supervisory board on Thursday approved a transformation plan that will include cutting another 50,000 jobs in \u200cits attempt to counter painful tariffs, overcapacity and aggressive Chinese rivals. <\/p>\n
The plan, the most extensive \u200crestructuring in Volkswagen’s 89-year history, includes exploring alternatives for four German plants that will eventually run out of models during the \u200bnext decade. <\/p>\n
It also averts a major clash with unions by putting the scenario of an extraordinary general meeting on the backburner, a scenario that was considered by management to push through its plans against workers and Volkswagen’s second-largest shareholder, Lower Saxony. <\/p>\n
The deal will result in a simplification of Volkswagen’s conglomerate structure and limit \u200cthe influence of the group’s supervisory \u2060board \u2014 on which unions and Lower Saxony hold a majority \u2014 on key decisions. <\/p>\n
“This is a strong signal for the future of the Volkswagen Group. We are taking \u2060responsibility for our entire workforce, for our partners and for industrial jobs worldwide,” CEO Oliver Blume said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Frankfurt-listed Volkswagen shares closed 7.9% higher following the news, reflecting relief over what sources said could have escalated \u200binto \u200ban unprecedented crisis at Europe’s largest automaker. <\/p>\n
Industry analyst Ferdinand \u200bDudenhoeffer said the next 10 months would \u200csee discussions over the future of Volkswagen’s plants in Emden, Zwickau, Neckarsulm and Hannover, which all face a staggered phase-out from 2031 onwards. <\/p>\n
The deal follows weeks of tense negotiations that pitted the board and majority owner Porsche SE against unions and Lower Saxony, with the idea of a spinoff of Volkswagen’s passenger car and components businesses no longer being mentioned. <\/p>\n
“A certain sense of calm is returning, but it is \u200cfar from ‘peace’. In politics, one would call it a ‘ceasefire’. That’s \u200ba good thing, because now the focus can be on \u200bthe business,” Dudenhoeffer said. <\/p>\n
The “Future Plan” comes as \u200bVolkswagen faces pressure from all sides, squeezed between U.S. import tariffs and a \u200cweak Chinese market, the world’s biggest car market \u200band once the group’s cash \u200bcow. <\/p>\n
Volkswagen said “a further fundamental adjustment of the global workforce capacity” was needed, saying this would include a reduction of around 50,000 positions worldwide \u2014 in addition to a 50,000-job reduction already under \u200bway. <\/p>\n
The company did not provide \u200cfurther details on the timing of the workforce reduction or how the cuts would be \u200bdistributed across its brands and regions. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey, Christoph Steitz and Christina Amann; \u200bEditing by Shailesh Kuber, Rod Nickel and Stephen Coates) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Christina Amann, Christoph Steitz and Mrinmay Dey BERLIN\/FRANKFURT\/MEXICO CITY, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Volkswagen’s supervisory board on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20947],"tags":[44583,9080,18,6294,61880,61879,1314,1170,27077,61881,4416,61882,56197,5356],"class_list":["post-86277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-volkswagen","tag-44583","tag-9080","tag-berlin","tag-chinese","tag-christina-amann","tag-christoph-steitz","tag-frankfurt","tag-lower-saxony","tag-mexico-city","tag-mrinmay-dey","tag-reuters","tag-sept-3","tag-the-future","tag-volkswagen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86277","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=86277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}