Volkswagen's subsidiary Cariad, which develops the software for the group's cars, is immediately laying off 1,600 employees. This corresponds to just over one in three employees.
Volkswagen subsidiary Cariad, which develops the group's software, plans to cut almost a third of its jobs by the end of the year. Specifically, 1,600 employees will be laid off.
A VW spokesperson confirmed this to the DPA news agency.
Volkswagen also says that it will implement the cuts in a 'socially acceptable manner', namely through early retirements and/or other severance packages.
This is how it will be until 2029, because a collective agreement with the German unions prohibits Volkswagen from firing people due to general cutbacks.
According to German media, Volkswagen employees in Wolfsburg, Berlin and Ingolstadt have already been told that many of them are unwanted.
The 1,600 layoffs are the end of the savings round, VW promises.
According to VW management, the goal is to achieve savings by 'better integrating Cariad into the general VW group'.
On the other hand, a Cariad spokesperson says that software developers who are "essential to the VW Group" are exempt from the cuts. However, it is not known how many will be exempt from the layoffs.
However, with the layoffs, Volkswagen believes that the restructuring of the group that CEO Oliver Blume initiated back in 2023 has been completed.
– In close collaboration with the brands, we have improved the quality of the software and increased our delivery capacity, says the car giant.
Volkswagen can hardly claim that Cariad has been a success. On the contrary, the Germans' own software has received so much criticism that they have turned to their competitors for help.
Last year, it emerged that VW was paying American Rivian 45 billion Danish kroner to develop the software for the next Golf. In connection with the presentation of the electric city car ID.1, it was also made clear that Rivian would develop the majority of the technology.
ID.1, currently presented as the ID.Every1 concept, is expected to land in Denmark in 2027. And at a price of 150,000 kroner.
