The corporate needs to shut at the very least three crops in Germany
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BERLIN — Volkswagen stated important price cuts are urgently wanted because it reported a steep decline in third-quarter earnings on Wednesday and confronted worker representatives offended at the opportunity of the automaker’s first plant closures in Germany.
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The corporate reported web revenue of 1.58 billion euros ($1.7 billion) for the July-September interval, a 64% decline from the 4.35 billion euros it earned a yr earlier. Income was solely marginally decrease, slipping 0.5% to 78.49 billion euros.
The figures got here two days after the pinnacle of Volkswagen’s works council stated administration had knowledgeable worker representatives that it needs to shut at the very least three crops in Germany. The corporate hasn’t publicly detailed its plans.
Volkswagen stated in early September that auto trade headwinds imply it could possibly’t rule out plant closures in its house nation, and should drop a job safety pledge in power since 1994 that may have barred layoffs via 2029.
It cited components together with new opponents coming into European markets and economically stagnant Germany’s deteriorating place as a producing location. European automakers are going through elevated competitors from cheap Chinese language electrical automobiles.
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The most recent outcomes “display the pressing want for motion in a unstable surroundings characterised by intense competitors,” chief monetary officer Arno Antlitz stated. “For this reason we face essential and painful choices that we have to make collectively and to bear collectively.”
“We’ve not forgotten easy methods to construct nice automobiles, however the prices _ particularly in our German operations and factories — are removed from being aggressive,” Antlitz stated. “For this reason issues can’t proceed as they’re now.”
Citing the confidentiality of talks with worker representatives, he stated he wouldn’t remark particularly on plans or “speculations.”
Additionally on Wednesday, Volkswagen was holding a second spherical of talks at its Wolfsburg headquarters with union and worker representatives.
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The top of the worker council, Daniela Cavallo, stated employees need to see a “complete plan for the longer term,” which must contain greater than labor and plant prices.
“We count on at the moment that the corporate at the very least declare its readiness to enter a negotiating course of with us that has the goal of creating options to plant closures and layoffs,” stated Thorsten Gröger, the regional chief of the IG Metall industrial union. That, he added, is “the precondition for us to have the ability to proceed this negotiating course of.”
In any other case, he famous {that a} no-strike obligation below the final wage take care of Volkswagen expires Dec. 1.
Volkswagen has some 120,000 staff in Germany, the place it has 10 crops — six of them within the northern state of Decrease Saxony, together with Wolfsburg.
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