Audi to slash 9,500 jobs in Germany by 2025

Layoffs part of massive restructuring plan to save billions by 2029

FRANKFURT: German carmaker Audi said on Tuesday it planned to slash 9,500 jobs in Germany by 2025, as part of a massive restructuring plan to save billions by 2029.

The job cuts will be achieved through an early retirement programme and natural turnover, the company said, adding that it would continue to hire in areas such as electromobility and digitisation.

The move would contribute towards the "optimisation of production capacities at the two German plants" while also offering the remaining workforce job guarantees up to the end of 2029, it said in a statement.

"The €6-billion ($6.6 billion) thus generated will secure the strategic targeted return corridor of 9-11% and will flow into future projects such as electrification and digitisation," it added.

The reorganisation comes as Audi, part of the Volkswagen Group, is making a costly and painful switch from combustion engines to an electric fleet.

Hit by falling sales, revenues and operating profits over the first nine months of 2019, the high-end subsidiary has also suffered more than other German manufacturers from the introduction last year of the new WLTP emissions testing standards in the European Union.

At the same time, it has ramped up spending on new technologies, including battery-electric and hybrid vehicles, connectivity and autonomous driving.

Like other brands in the Volkswagen group, it is still struggling to turn the page on the dieselgate scandal -- stunning revelations that the carmaker giant fitted illegal "defeat devices" to fool regulators' emissions tests.