The supervisory board of Volkswagen is meeting on Thursday (9 July), at a time when it needs to undergo a restructuring that should involve deep cost cuts. Including manpower.
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09/07/2026
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ANDthursday (9 july) is the day of the meeting of the supervisory board of the Volkswagen Group, which goes through a difficult period in which it is urgent make cuts to make the business sustainable.
According to Reuters, one of the subjects on the table should be cutting up to 100,000 jobs (plus 50,000 than the original plans predicted), with executive director Oliver Blume having to justify the measure – and get the unions to accept it, as these usually have a lot of strength.
According to the international press, they can also closing four factories in Germany. Moreover, excess production capacity is one of the problems facing the conglomerate at this stage.
The protests were not expected – even without the results of the meeting being known. The IG Metall union speaks of about 400 people contesting the potential measures of the Volkswagen Group only in Wolfsburg – at the headquarters of the company.
The Lower Saxony government has a preponderant burden on decisions. Their willingness to accept factory closures is subject to contradictory rumors: according to WirtschaftsWoche cited by Reuters, they will be willing to accept, but another source of the state government said that “it makes no sense”.
The overcapacity of production in factories has been trying to be mitigated in recent years: one of the solutions has been the defence partnership with the Osnabrück plant and the possible production of Chinese models in German installations.
Currently, the Volkswagen Group has about 650,000 workers, according to Euronews. But personnel cuts and factory closures will not be easy to approve, taking into account the company’s peculiar shareholder structure – which, as we have said, includes up to 20 percent of the Lower Saxony government and the Porsche and Piech families.
And in March Oliver Blume himself will have recognized him: “Our business model of recent decades no longer works“, pointed out quoted by Euronews.
Intense Chinese competition (especially in China's market), tariffs and even a lower-than-expected return with electric models are some of the causes of difficulties – which lead to thinking of the deepest revitalization to reach a sustainable and healthy business model.