Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
On 20 December 2024, German car manufacturer Volkswagen (VW) announced to have reached a deal with its works council and the German Metalworkers Union (IG Metall). In October 2024, the company had initially announced plans to close three German plants and cut wages of the workforce by 10%. The co-determined company has several company-level agreements in place, including one ruling out redundancies due to operational reasons until 2029. To realise its plan, company management entered negotiations with the works council and IG Metall. The latter announced strong resistance to the company's plans and organised warning strikes at German VW plants throughout the autumn of 2024.
After five negotiation rounds, VW management, works council and union reached a compromise shortly before Christmas 2024. The new agreement foresees that over 35,000 jobs will be cut in Germany by the end of 2030. In its press release, the company has already announced that job cuts will be made at its production site in Dreseden by the end of 2025. Around 4,000 positions will be lost in technical development located in Wolfsburg. In addition, the company is also reducing its numbers of assembly lines. At its Wolfsburg plant, two out of four assembly lines will be shut down from 2027 onwards. The production will move to Mexico instead. In addition, the company will also evaluate further possibilities to use other sites differently (e.g. Osnabrück). Further cost-cutting and flexibility measures were agreed upon for other VW sites (e.g. more flexible working time models at its sites in Kassel, Braunschweig, Salzgitter, Hanover, Wolfsburg and Chemnitz). Finally, the new collective agreement rules out wage raises for the next four years and reduces certain bonus payments.
VW management stated in its accompanying press release that new deal will reduce labour costs annually by EUR 1.5 billion (until 2030). In the medium-term, all agreed measures will reduce costs by over EUR 4 billion annually.
In 2020, Volkswagen announced a restructuring programme which included the loss of 5000 jobs in Germany. This event has been recorded in the ERM events database Volkswagen 2020 - DE.
Eurofound (2024), Volkswagen, Internal restructuring in Germany, factsheet number 202150, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/202150.
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