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One in every four jobs at Porsche in Germany could be cut, union representatives at the luxury-car maker said, amid difficult negotiations with management over a new savings programme.
With some 23,000 employees working at Porsche’s sites around its base in Stuttgart, about 5,500 jobs could be affected.
The company was “threatening to relocate development and production to countries with significantly lower wages”, the head of the works council, Ibrahim Aslan, said in a statement. “This puts one in four jobs at Porsche AG at risk.”
Porsche declined to comment on the job numbers, but said that “significant cost optimisations are essential” given the “immense challenges” facing the European auto industry. The company, which is part of the Volkswagen group, fell into the red for the first time since it was separately listed in 2022 after it reported a near €1bn loss in the third quarter.
The sports-car maker, which already announced in February that it would cut 1,900 jobs in Germany by 2029, has been hit by sluggish demand for its electric models. The company has also felt the impact of new tariffs on exports to the US and falling sales in China. Deliveries to customers in China have fallen almost 26 per cent over the first nine months of this year.
Porsche’s struggles mirror those at the broader Volkswagen group, which has laid out plans to significantly reduce its workforce in Germany by 2030 including 35,000 jobs at its core VW brand.
The talks over further cost-saving measures were initiated by chief executive Oliver Blume, who will step down as Porsche chief executive at the end of December after almost 10 years.
Porsche workers are covered by a job guarantee until 2030 that precludes forced lay-offs, meaning that headcount reductions have to come via voluntary programmes or demographic attrition.
Its management had so far “failed to present a vision for the future”, Aslan said. “We are convinced that the future of our colleagues is more important than simply increasing profits,” he said.
The talks will probably conclude after former McLaren chief executive Michael Leiters takes over as chief executive of the sports-car maker in the new year.
Blume has also served as chief executive of the Volkswagen group since 2022, and will continue in the role beyond the end of this year.
