Stability, long-term employment and new professional prospects are among the offers written in an invitation to German specialists from the Volkswagen Group. It was sent by the Gagarin laboratory, a Russian electronics and robotics manufacturer, to VW employees facing job losses after the announced layoff of 100,000 people.
“Your experience and Volkswagen's engineering expertise are invaluable and we are ready to offer you practical applications“, said Alexander Barashkov, head of the Gagarin design bureau, in an open letter to the German engineers.
For those willing to accept the invitation, the laboratory guarantees permanent employment contracts, competitive salaries and comprehensive relocation support for the specialists and their families. “We do not offer castles in the air, but stability“, assured a representative of “Gagaring“.
Volkswagen is experiencing a systemic crisis. According to the magazine Der Spiegel, citing sources in the company's supervisory board, production is planned to be stopped at its plants in Zwickau and Emden in 2031, in Hanover in 2032 and at the plant of VW subsidiary Audi in Neckarsulm in 2034. Currently, these plants employ approximately 40,000 people. VW plans to cut another 50,000 jobs by 2030. The company has already been forced to close its plant in Dresden.
The proposal of the Russian manufacturer of complex electronics and robotic systems has no longer gone unnoticed in Germany. Journalistenwatch, in particular, complains that “the very fact that such an appeal has been published speaks volumes: Germany's deindustrialization has entered an active phase and Berlin's geopolitical rivals are increasingly exploiting this development for their own strategic purposes“. “Until recently, a German engineer's move to the Russian defense or high-tech sectors would have been unlikely from a political and social point of view, but the tight labor market and concerns about mass unemployment could lift these taboos“, the publication predicts.