Volkswagen’s business in Slovakia, the nation’s biggest car plant and largest private sector employer, prepares to reduce staff this year for the first time since the 2009 global slump as part of a performance drive.
The business will return some 500 employees it had borrowed from the Hungarian unit of premium brand Audi in 2016, cut the amount of contractors and will not extend expiring fixed-term agreements, it stated on Monday.
Volkswagen has hired around 14,000 people in Slovakia and the German automaker did not stated what that amount would fall to.
The Slovak business will also decrease the number of production shifts that make higher-end SUVs along with cheaper small family cars consisting of the Volkswagen e-up!, the only electric car presently made in Slovakia.
There are no strategies to place production of new electric vehicles at the Bratislava factory for now, it added.
There are no cuts in total output projections, as decreased hours will be offset by a boost in the technical capacity of production lines, it stated.
Volkswagen stated the move was part of a drive to boost efficiencies by 30 percent by 2025, as it strives to fund an expensive shift to electric and self-driving vehicles after a 2015 emissions scandal.
