VW to cut jobs at ‘no longer competitive’ VW brand, Reuters reports

Volkswagen managers told staff that the company’s EUR10B cost reduction program will include layoffs, as brand chief Thomas Schaefer warned that mounting costs and low productivity were making its vehicles uncompetitive, Reuters’ Victoria Waldersee reports. The German automaker is in the middle of talks with its works council over a savings scheme at its VW brand, the author notes. “With many of our pre-existing structures, processes and high costs, we are no longer competitive as the Volkswagen brand,” Schaefer told a staff meeting at the carmaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, according to Waldersee, citing a post on the company’s intranet site.