Automaker Porsche to cut 9,000 jobs by 2035

In a deal announced on Monday after months of negotiations, Porsche management and labor representatives agreed to 5,000 additional job cuts that avoid compulsory redundancies through measures like natural attrition and voluntary schemes.These measures follow a first package of 3,900 job cuts agreed in February 2025 and another 500 announced by CEO Michael Leiters this year linked to the closure of subsidiaries.Porsche had a workforce of some 42,600 at the end of 2024.On becoming CEO at the start of the year, Leiters was tasked with overhauling the business after sales in Porsche’s once highly lucrative China market collapsed and its electric vehicle (EV) strategy stalled.The job cuts roughly correspond to the decline in sales volume, said Daniel Schwarz, automotive analyst at investment bank Metzler. “They are unavoidable in order to reduce costs, because a return to strong growth in China is not expected,” he said.Other German carmakers including Mercedes-Benz and BMW are also cutting costs as they navigate the shift to EVs in a race with Chinese rivals while absorbing the impact of high tariffs.The deal announced by Porsche also includes guarantees to keep sites open for another five years, until the end of 2035, as well as 2.1 billion euro ($2.39 billion) in investments in its main factory of Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and its R&D center in Weissach, the company and the works council said in a statement.The announcement followed a meeting of Porsche’s supervisory board last Wednesday, in which the committee gave its blessing to the additional cuts.Leiters’ predecessor Oliver Blume remains CEO of Volkswagen, having ended a dual leadership role that was opposed by many investors.Blume is now pushing for a doubling of job cuts across the Volkswagen group to 100,000, measures that he says are necessary to remain competitive as more Chinese brands come to Europe.He has also warned that four of the group’s factories, including one belonging to premium brand Audi, are threatened with closure after 2030.