Breaking: Volkswagen is preparing to cut 15% of its global workforce.
Volkswagen is now considering cutting up to an additional 100,000 jobs on top of its total global workforce of 667,164, and closing four German plants: Hanover, Zwickau, Emden, and Audi's Neckarsulm plant.
This is the largest restructuring in the company's 88-year history.
The supervisory board will discuss the matter on July 9th. And this is the third escalation within 18 months.
End of 2024: 35,000 positions.
March 2026: Raised to 50,000 positions after operating profit plunged 53% to €8.9 billion, the worst result since the 2016 dieselgate scandal.
Now: 100,000 positions, double that number, and for the first time in the company's history, accompanied by plant closures.
Despite a 44% profit plunge in 2025, Volkswagen's executive board received total bonus payments of €13.6 million, with CEO Oliver Blume personally taking home €7.4 million.
Bonuses are linked to cash flow, not profit, so management got paid while the company recorded its worst year since dieselgate.
China is the main reason for this situation.
Volkswagen was China's top automaker for years. BYD took that position in 2024. Volkswagen fell to third place in 2025, behind Geely.
The market share of non-Chinese automakers in China's EV market plummeted from 57% in 2020 to 32% in 2025. Volkswagen's local EV sales in China fell 44.3% in a year.
Chinese automakers are not limited to the Chinese market. BYD, Chery, SAIC, and Leapmotor doubled their combined share in the European market by May, expanding directly into Volkswagen's European home turf, while Volkswagen simultaneously lost ground in China.
Volkswagen plans to cut its planned five-year investment by 15% to just over €130 billion, while reportedly considering spinning off its core Volkswagen brand and components business into separate entities.
The union has already promised to fight.
IG Metall and Volkswagen's works council said on Friday they would "do everything to stop" these job cuts. The same union organized a 100,000-worker warning strike across Germany in December 2024, shutting down production at multiple plants for hours at a time over a round of layoffs only half the size of this one.
If 35,000 job cuts triggered that kind of reaction, the fight over 100,000 jobs and four closed plants is likely to cause far more severe disruption.











