Six months on from the signing of a crisis agreement providing for 35,000 job cuts (out of 130,000 jobs in Germany) without compulsory redundancies by 2030, what is lay of the land at Volkswagen? The group’s personnel director Gunnar Kilian gave a first glimpse of this at a staff meeting at the parent plant in Wolfsburg on 3 June. “Around 20,000 departures from the company by 2030 are already contractually agreed,” he explained, adding that the process was proceeding according to schedule.
As a Berlin correspondent for the French and Swiss press since the late 1990s, I cover a wide range of economic, political and social issues, with a particular focus on the German business and labour market. My areas of interest include co-determination, digitalisation, demographics and ESG/DEI policies.