Volkswagen is bracing for a far-reaching upheaval. According to Manager Magazin, citing insider sources, chief executive Oliver Blume is planning to cut up to 100,000 of the group's roughly 657,000 jobs worldwide.
That would double the previous target for job cuts. Only a few months ago, VW announced plans to axe around 50,000 positions by 2030 – a move already regarded at the time as historically significant.
Blume is said to have already presented the restructuring plan to the management board. According to a second insider, the key document deliberately contains no specific figure to leave room for how the restructuring is ultimately implemented.
Volkswagen declined to comment on the report, saying: "The relevant facts of the matter will be discussed and approved by the relevant bodies. We will not pre-empt this process," a spokesperson said in a written statement sent to Euronews.
The spokesperson added: "The Executive Board has repeatedly stated that our current business model no longer works across all brands: developing cars in Germany, producing them in Europe and exporting them to the world." They said both the automotive industry and the Volkswagen Group are undergoing a profound transformation.
Four plants face closure
In addition to job cuts, the Manager Magazin report says four production sites could also be shut down over the medium term. The VW plants in Hanover, Zwickau and Emden, as well as the Audi factory in Neckarsulm in Baden-Württemberg, would reportedly be affected. Under the plans, production at these locations would be wound up as the models currently built there reach the end of their life cycles.
It is still unclear how such a large-scale reduction in headcount could be implemented under labour and collective bargaining law. Volkswagen currently has a job security agreement in place until the end of 2030, while Audi's runs until the end of 2033.
Beyond job cuts, the group is also planning a fundamental overhaul of its structure, according to the report. Both the core Volkswagen brand and the components division would be spun off from the group and turned into independent companies. This could make it easier for Volkswagen to list individual businesses on the capital markets in future.
A crisis years in the making
The current plans are not a bolt from the blue but the provisional culmination of a deep-rooted structural crisis. In the first quarter of 2026, the group's net profit slumped by 28% to €1.56bn, while revenue fell by 2% to €75.7bn.
At the time, chief financial officer Arno Antlitz issued an unusually frank warning: "The cost savings planned so far are not enough. If we fail to do this, we are putting our future at risk."
Adding to the pressure are US tariffs, which, according to Antlitz, are costing the group around €4bn a year in extra costs. At the same time, VW reported a 20% drop in sales in the first quarter in its most important single market, China, where domestic carmakers such as BYD are intensifying competition both at home and increasingly across Europe.
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