Volkswagen CFO says ‘too many layers, too many entities’ as Europe’s biggest carmaker doubles job-cut target to 100,000
Volkswagen reported an operating profit of 3.5 billion euros ($3.98 billion) for the April-June quarter on Friday, down nearly 10% from a year ago and well short of the 4.3 billion euros analysts had penciled in. The carmaker also tore up its revenue outlook for 2026, now expecting sales revenue to fall by as much as 3% against an earlier forecast of growth of up to 3%. Shares slipped 3% in Friday morning trade and are down close to 30% so far this year.The numbers landed days after Volkswagen confirmed it is weighing up to 100,000 job cuts—twice the figure it had previously acknowledged—in what would rank among the largest restructurings in automotive history. Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz was blunt about what the margin is telling management. Speaking to CNBC, he said a margin of roughly 4% is clearly a wake-up call that the company has to do a second step of restructuring, pointing to tariff costs, the rapid growth of China’s domestic premium segment and a surge of Chinese exports into Europe.
China collapse is doing most of the damage to Volkswagen’s numbers
Volkswagen’s China problem is no longer a slow bleed. Sales in the country fell more than 31% in the first half of 2026, dragging global deliveries down 6.3% to roughly 4.1 million cars. The company that once dominated Chinese roads was knocked into second place by BYD in 2024 and slid to third behind Geely in 2025. Group operating profit has been falling in steps—22.6 billion euros in 2023, 19.1 billion in 2024, and 8.9 billion last year.Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said Volkswagen’s update lays bare how far western carmakers are being squeezed out of China by domestic rivals. Non-Chinese automakers’ share of that market fell to 32% in 2025 from 57% in 2020, according to AlixPartners.
Four German plants still have no confirmed future after 2030
CEO Oliver Blume told staff in an internal memo this month that group costs run 20% higher than comparable businesses, which translates into a theoretical deduction of another 50,000 jobs worldwide on top of the 50,000 already agreed. He also wrote that the company still cannot confirm competitive use cases into the 2030s for its plants at Emden, Hanover, Zwickau and Neckarsulm, the last of which belongs to Audi.Those four sites employ more than 45,000 people between them. Volkswagen had promised unions in late 2024 that there would be no German factory closures and no compulsory redundancies before the end of 2030. The supervisory board, where labour representatives hold real power, rejected Blume’s closure plan earlier this month.
Volkswagen is hunting alternatives to shutting factories, including defence work
Antlitz did not commit to closures. Asked whether idle plant capacity could be handed to the defence industry, he said various options exist and that he is not looking for job cuts or plant closures for their own sake. The goal, he said, is a lower cost structure, higher productivity and better capacity utilisation—and if better options turn up, the company will look at them. Finding an alternative to shutting plants would be much better, he added.Alongside the cuts, Volkswagen plans to halve its model line-up and trim production capacity. Most of the additional job losses would fall on administrative roles across the global business, which employs more than 650,000 people across Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Seat, Bentley and Cupra.Blume framed the moment as an unprecedented risk scenario, one the group enters from a position of strength. The market, so far, is unconvinced.
