Volkswagen has proposed up to 50,000 further job cuts, with roughly half of them concentrated in Germany, stacked on top of 50,000 domestic cuts already agreed.
For Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers still priced against Volkswagen’s German cost base, this reaches your RFQs long before the next platform award is decided.
Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume warned that the car sector’s problems will only intensify in the coming years, arguing for cuts that could reach a further 50,000 positions. He told workers in Wolfsburg that roughly half of the additional cuts will need to happen in Germany, on top of the 50,000 domestic reductions management had already agreed.
Volkswagen is not waiting for demand to recover. It is cutting cost now, before the downturn deepens, and that timing matters more than the number itself.
One OEM’s restructuring should never decide your company’s future.
The supplier still priced against Volkswagen’s old cost base looks at three things:
↳ Roughly half of the fresh cuts fall inside Germany, on top of 50,000 domestic reductions already agreed. If your plant sits inside a German Volkswagen supply chain, your call-offs are being renegotiated before a formal RFQ ever lands on your desk.
↳ Blume is cutting ahead of a downturn he expects to deepen, not one already here. The pressure on your next quote will not ease once volumes recover.
↳ The cuts target Volkswagen’s own headcount, but every price agreed against its old cost base gets reopened once the new one lands. Because that review sits with Volkswagen, not with you, a second OEM relationship is the only hedge you control.
How many OEM relationships stand between your business and Volkswagen’s next cost review?
I am not here to tell you to drop Volkswagen as a customer. If a first conversation about a second platform is worth thirty minutes, I am glad to have it.