Europe’s biggest car company Volkswagen has reportedly unanimously approved a sweeping transformation plan that will bring the automaker’s total planned job cuts to 100,000, marking the most extensive restructuring in the company’s 89-year history. According to a report by multiple sources and Reuters, this decision of the carmaker comes as part of sweeping transformation plan approved by the company’s supervisory board, which is aimed at reshaping operations and reducing costs.
Volkswagen’s ‘future plan’
The board signed off on the “Future Plan,” a package of a dozen initiatives aimed at making Europe’s largest carmaker leaner and more competitive. The newly approved phase targets roughly 50,000 positions, including management roles, on top of another 50,000 cuts already agreed upon earlier this year. Combined, the reductions amount to roughly 15% of a global workforce that stood at more than 660,000 employees in 2025, and would eclipse the scale of General Motors’ cuts following its 2009 bankruptcy.Volkswagen said the additional workforce reduction was necessary, beyond its existing cost-cutting programs, to safeguard the group’s competitiveness going forward. The company has not detailed exactly when the cuts will take effect or how they will be distributed across its various brands and regions, though the plan is expected to unfold through the end of the decade.
Volkwagen job cuts: Links to China and the US
The job cuts stem from a mix of pressures bearing down on Volkswagen from multiple directions. The company is grappling with intensifying competition from Chinese automakers, both in China itself — long one of Volkswagen’s most important markets — and increasingly in Europe, where Chinese electric-vehicle makers have been gaining ground. At the same time, Volkswagen has had to contend with US tariffs on imported vehicles, adding cost pressure just as global demand patterns shift and the industry pushes through a difficult technological transition toward electrification.Those headwinds have weighed heavily on sales. Volkswagen is expected to sell only about 8.5 million vehicles this year, down from 8.9 million in 2025, according to a supervisory board document reported by German outlet WirtschaftsWoche.
Plant closures and a smaller lineup
As part of the overhaul, Volkswagen will halve its model lineup by 2035 and is examining alternative uses for four German plants — in Hannover, Emden, Zwickau and Neckarsulm — where no confirmed production plans exist for the next decade. Closing any of the sites outright would mark the first time Volkswagen has shut a full-scale factory on home soil. The company is also aiming to streamline its complex corporate structure and reduce the supervisory board’s influence over major executive decisions. Porsche, part of the wider Volkswagen Group, is separately expected to cut around a fifth of its jobs by 2035.