Volkswagen accelerates layoffs: 19,000 jobs to go in Germany by the end of 2026
A. Krivonosov
CEO Oliver Blume will tell shareholders at the annual meeting that the German workforce is being cut by 19,000 this year, with more than 28,000 jobs going by 2030.
Volkswagen is pressing ahead with a major cost-cutting drive in Germany. According to Reuters, CEO Oliver Blume is set to tell investors at the annual shareholder meeting that the company’s German workforce will be reduced by 19,000 people by the end of 2026.
The move is part of a longer-running savings programme. The target agreed with the unions for 2030 exceeds 28,000 jobs. The wording matters: this is not a one-off layoff but a cost restructuring that will reshape Volkswagen’s German operations for years to come.
Blume also said that factory costs at Volkswagen’s German sites have already been cut by more than 20% through 2025. For the company, this is one of the key arguments it can present to investors: the brand is trying to show it can keep reducing costs in a country where production is traditionally expensive and competitive pressure keeps rising.
The reasons are clear. Volkswagen is dealing with high labour costs in Germany, Chinese competition, a tough transition to electric vehicles and the need to fund new platforms, batteries and software all at once. Against this backdrop, the old industrial scale is becoming not only an advantage but also a burden.
The signal goes beyond one brand. Even Volkswagen, for decades seen as a pillar of the German auto industry, now has to count every shift, every platform and every job. New cars coming out of Europe are unlikely to get any cheaper, but the way they are produced will clearly look less and less like the previous era.
