Reuters reporting indicates that Volkswagen Chief Executive Oliver Blume will tell investors at the group’s AGM on 18 June that 19,000 jobs will be cut by the end of 2026, with a binding target of 28,000 reductions at the core Volkswagen brand by 2030. The disclosure marks the first concrete mid-year progress update on a restructuring programme that has been steadily expanding in scope since it was first announced in late 2024; it also appears to be exceeding the purview of the agreement made with the automaker’s works council in 2025.

Both the 19,000 and 28,000 figures sit within a broader group-wide target of 50,000 job cuts across Germany by 2030, covering the core Volkswagen brand, Audi, Porsche and software subsidiary Cariad. The scale of the cuts reflects the depth of VW’s financial deterioration: operating profit fell 53% to €8.9bn (US$10.3bn) in 2025, net profit dropped 44% to €6.9bn and the group’s operating margin compressed to 2.8%—its worst since the Dieselgate crisis. Blume has set a target of restoring margins to 8-10%, a gap that the current restructuring alone will not be able to close.

The pressures driving the cuts have not abated. Arguably they are only getting worse: US tariffs have cost the group billions, and the Trump administration continues to inflict volatility on international trade relationships. Chinese competitors have eroded Volkswagen both in China—where it is now outsold by both BYD and Geely—and, increasingly, Europe. Porsche’s costly reversal on electrification generated more than €3bn in extraordinary charges that contributed heavily to the 2025 profit collapse. 

Volkswagen projects a 2026 core profit margin of 4-4.5%, which Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz has described as insufficient for the long run. The automaker has arguably already violated the terms of the deal it struck with the works council, which explicitly ruled out any plant closures in Germany. Vehicle production at its Transparent Factory in Dresden was wound down by end-2025, and even more controversially, its Osnabrück plant may be converted to provide supplies for Israel’s Iron Dome defence system. Its 2,300 workers face the end of T-Roc production in mid-2027 with no confirmed successor model or alternative use case; the IG Metall works council said on 11 June it expects management to “quickly provide real perspectives” for the workforce, language that signals growing impatience with the absence of a concrete plan.

The defence pivot option is a symptom of the wider problem and difficult to characterise as anything more than a band-aid. Volkswagen’s underutilised factories were built for volumes that the European market can no longer absorb, and the group’s China exposure—once its most valuable asset—is now a liability as local rivals consolidate their domestic dominance. Blume’s repeated references to China as a competitive pressure “incentive to work intensively on the cost side” suggests Volkswagen has accepted that its revenues there will not recover to prior levels.

The 19,000 cuts by year-end will be achieved primarily through natural attrition, early retirement and voluntary departures rather than compulsory redundancies, consistent with the terms of the union deal struck in late 2024. Whether the pace of voluntary departure can sustain the remaining 9,000 cuts needed to reach the 28,000 core VW brand target by 2030—and whether the Osnabrueck situation resolves before it becomes a forced closure—are the two questions Blume will likely face most directly at the 18 June general meeting.