FRANKFURT, (Germany): Premium carmaker BMW is to offer almost half its German staff voluntary redundancy in a bid to cut 8,000 jobs by the end of 2027, a company source told AFP Wednesday.
About 40,000 of BMW’s roughly 85,000 permanent German employees would receive the offers from October, the source said, adding that production line workers would be spared the cuts.
“The workforce will ultimately be reduced by around 8,000 people by the end of 2027,” the source said. “We’re planning on the basis of that.” BMW employs about 154,000 people worldwide and the offer would be open to German employees in desk-based roles, the source said.
The plan had taken about six weeks to negotiate between the board and BMW’s works council, the source added.
Suffering from slimmer margins on electric cars, US tariffs and above all intense Chinese competition, German carmakers have sought to cut overheads.
Volkswagen is weighing up to 100,000 job cuts across its 10 brands while Mercedes-Benz has its own voluntary redundancy program.
A BMW employee present at a staff meeting announcing the plans said the carmaker’s CEO had called the situation critical, partly blaming European regulations that force the sale of electric cars despite patchy demand as well as increasing tariff barriers around the world.
“We are talking about a substantial change to the rules of the game,” CEO Milan Nedeljkovic told staff. “That is also a consequence of political mandates that are out of step with the market.”
“Neither the protectionism nor far-reaching changes in the market are going to disappear,” he added.
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