Audi Announces Plans to Review Profit-Sharing for Employees Amid Cost-Cutting Efforts
Audi, the German automaker, has announced plans to review its profit-sharing scheme for employees as part of its efforts to reduce costs. According to a statement by Jochen Haberland, the negotiator for Audi’s labor union talks, the company must discuss the Audi results-sharing and employee success-sharing to achieve a substantial reduction in personnel costs without layoffs.
The company’s current profit-sharing scheme, which provided an 8,840-euro bonus to employees last year, is seen as unsustainable in the long term, as it does not take into account the company’s long-term viability. Audi aims to reduce its personnel costs by up to 1.5 billion euros per year, with 1 billion euros of that coming from job cuts and 500 million euros from cost reductions.
The cost-cutting measures, which are part of a broader plan to make the company more profitable, have been met with resistance from the labor union, IG Metall. The union’s chairman, Jörg Schlagbauer, has warned that if the Audi plan fails, the union will be prepared to take a similar approach to that of Volkswagen, where the union successfully negotiated concessions from the management in the face of cost-cutting measures. The Audi management has declined to comment on the figures.