According to the German News Agency, people familiar with the matter revealed that Volkswagen plans to lay off temporary workers at its main electric vehicle plant in Germany due to the reduction of the company’s electric vehicle orders in Europe.
The company plans to let nearly 300 employees at its Zwickau plant leave when their contracts expire in October, sources said. The fate of about 2,000 more temporary workers remains uncertain. The plant currently employs about 10,700 people, said the people, who declined to be identified because a final decision has not yet been made.
Representatives of the union IG Metall have written a letter to Volkswagen management asking about Volkswagen’s response to demand for electric vehicles and whether the plant will keep operating in three shifts.
The Zwickau plant is the production site for six electric models of three brands under the Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen announced in 2018 that it would invest 1.2 billion euros to transform the plant into an electric vehicle. It is building a vehicle production base and keeping employees stable by increasing output, even though electric vehicles require less labor than internal combustion vehicles. But Volkswagen now faces competition from Tesla and a growing number of Chinese automakers, as well as falling demand for electric cars in Europe due to high inflation and subsidy cuts.
