Car giant's brutal plan to axe 100,000 jobs exposed - EVs and trade unions blamed

German car giant Volkswagen is planning a major restructure that could see up to 100,000 jobs axed globally in the coming years. Company executives are planning to reduce the workforce in a bid to drive efficiencies in a bid to save up to £9.5billion by 2030, according to local media.

The proposals will involve putting four car plants in Germany under review before ending production, Manager Magazin reported. The move would mark a significant milestone for the 89-year-old Wolfsburg-based car manufacturer, which owns a range of well known brands including Audi, Bentley, Skoda and Seat. It would also mean cost-cutting on a much greater scale than previously outlined, having said that 50,000 jobs were due to be cut by 2030 across the group in Germany.

At the time, chief executive Oliver Blume told shareholders that the company was on track to make savings of more than six billion euro (£5.2 billion) by 2030.

He has said that some 28,000 agreements for staff to leave by 2030 had already been made, which relates to those at the Germany headquarters,

"The transformation of the entire company is continuing to pick up speed," the boss had said. With these programmes we are methodically addressing all cost categories across all brands."

He also said the group was working to "address the reduction of overcapacities in our production network" by bringing down global targets from 12 million vehicles to nine million.

Matthias Schmidt, of Schmidt Automotive Research, said: "The VW Group has suffered from years of neglect in readjusting workforce numbers due to the stranglehold the regional government and trade unions have on the company. The market reality is hitting the German giant hardest."

It comes after reporting that vehicle deliveries had dropped by 10% in the US and 8% in China in 2025.

It said this was because of "challenging market conditions" including tariffs on US imports and increased competition in China where big electric carmakers like BYD have been taking huge shares of the market.

Despite this, deliveries rose by 4.5% in Europe to almost four million vehicles.

Volkswagen reportedly has around 625,000 staff around the world, meaning its job-cutting plans would shed about 16% of the total workforce if they went ahead.

Reports said that details of the new plan were set to be presented to the company's supervisory board on July 9.

A spokesperson for Volkswagen said the firm is not commenting on the speculation.