Porsche and Audi announce major job cuts and cost-saving plans amid crisis

Porsche has finalized an additional 5,000 job cuts by 2035. They are supposed to be socially acceptable. At Audi, a plant closure is being discussed.

28 July 2026 | 11:24 Uhr

At Porsche, 5,000 jobs are to disappear – through partial retirement and severance agreements. Photo: Marijan Murat/dpa

afp/taz — The difficulties at Volkswagen are not stopping at the premium subsidiaries either: Sports car manufacturer Porsche announced an additional 5,000 job cuts on Monday, while Audi lowered its sales forecast for the current year. The VW subsidiaries are suffering, like the group's core brand, from a collapsing China business and high burdens due to the tariffs of US President Donald Trump.

At Porsche, the strategic shift for the sale of combustion engines is costing the company billions. Originally, Porsche wanted to switch completely to electric vehicles in the coming years, but about two years ago, the luxury carmaker decided to stick with combustion engines for longer.

Porsche now announced a "socially acceptable" job reduction by 2035. The sports car manufacturer's sales fell sharply in the first half of the year, by around 16 percent to about 122,000 cars. In China, sales even collapsed by a third, in North America by 13 percent. In its home market of Germany, the company delivered just under 15,000 cars, six percent less than in the same period last year.

The "future package" now negotiated with the General Works Council and IG Metall is intended to "significantly" reduce personnel costs, as Porsche announced. In return, the board promised investments of 2.1 billion euros in the Zuffenhausen and Weissach sites near Stuttgart. The common goal is "to strengthen the competitiveness of the sports car manufacturer and thereby secure as many jobs as possible in the long term."

Partial Retirement and Severance Agreements

According to the information, the 5,000 jobs are to disappear through natural fluctuation, partial retirement, and severance agreements. At the same time, the company guaranteed the preservation of its sites and ruled out operational layoffs until 2035. In 2025, Porsche had already announced 3,900 job cuts. Before that, the company had just over 42,000 employees.

The Chairman of the General Works Council, Ibrahim Aslan, spoke of a hard-fought package.

"The future package is good for Porsche," explained Porsche CEO Michael Leiters. "It gives us the opportunity to strategically realign our company and invest in our competitiveness." Security for employees only exists "if we achieve our goals and are economically successful."

The Chairman of the General Works Council, Ibrahim Aslan, spoke of a "hard-fought" package. "We were able to convince the employer side that an investment in the Porsche company at the Zuffenhausen and Weissach sites is an opportunity, and thus secure employment significantly for another five years." The burdens would thus be distributed across all shoulders.

Cem Ince, social policy expert for the Left Party faction in the Bundestag, criticized the federal government's pension plans against this backdrop: "Partial retirement models have been a central instrument for years to make job cuts socially acceptable," he said. "An end to the deduction-free pension after 45 contribution years would bury this instrument," which would have catastrophic consequences for employees, companies, and regions.

Audi Wants Stricter Austerity Measures

The Ingolstadt-based VW subsidiary Audi lowered its sales forecast for 2026 by five billion to now 58 to 63 billion euros on Monday. "Geopolitical uncertainties, US tariffs, and intense competition – especially in China – shaped business development," the company explained. In the first half of the year, Audi recorded total sales of just over 29 billion euros – 10.4 percent less than in the same period last year.