The head of the Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA) Hildegard Müller believes that by 2035, some 190,000 jobs may be at risk. She expressed this opinion while speaking on the show Hart aber fair (“Hard but fair”), reports Bild newspaper.
According to Müller, this applies not only to the troubled German carmaker Volkswagen (VW), but also to many other supplier companies. The transition to electric mobility leads to a change in work profiles. “The transition to electromobility is changing jobs. The possibility of creating new jobs here depends on local conditions. We can no longer hide from this”, said the president of the VDA.
"Our energy costs are too high. We are too expensive in terms of bureaucracy and labor costs. If we don't get these problems under control, the car industry will go its own way, but not with growth, added value and job creation in Germany”, Müller said.
She noted that Germany is the second largest producer of electric vehicles in the world. “We still sell 100 times more cars in China than the other way around,”, Muller explained. However, the ban on internal combustion engines and the lack of infrastructure to charge electric vehicles, she says, is a problem for both consumers and manufacturers.
On Monday, the DPA agency, citing the head of the Volkswagen works council, Daniela Cavallo, reported that the concern plans to close three factories in Germany and cut tens of thousands of jobs. The Osnabrück plant, which recently lost a long-awaited additional order from Porsche, is at particular risk. Whole departments have to be closed or moved abroad. These plans, according to Cavallo, affect all Volkswagen plants in Germany.
Volkswagen itself noted that restructuring is the only way to remain competitive in the long term. The German government, as its representative Wolfgang Büchner said, believes that the company should keep the jobs. In the current round of collective bargaining, the IG Metall union is demanding a 7% wage increase and a €170 increase for trainees. In Germany, about 120,000 people work in VW factories, about half of them in Wolfsburg. The VW brand operates a total of 10 factories in Germany.