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Volkswagen plans 30K job cuts worldwide
- acd10j 10y agoWow ... so Executives who were actually responsible for taking this decisions will get away with it and staff will get fired. Always blame low level engineer seems to be the mantra.
- odabaxok 10y agoIf that matters the former CEO immediately accepted responsibility and resigned in 2015. I believe, these are further consequences of the budget cut, they are NOT blaming low level engineers for the emission scandal...
- mathgeek 10y agoThere may not be explicit blame, but the budget cuts are fallout from the scandal. Thus there are people losing their jobs while other people with (likely) more culpability for the scandal remain employed. A simpler way to put it would be that there is at least one person with no role in those decisions that is losing their job because of the scandal.
- acd10j 10y agoYes they are. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/volkswagen-pulls-2016-diesel-lineup-from-us-market/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/volkswagen-pulls-...
- lima 10y agoWhat if it's true?
- andygates 10y agoVAG said they had come clean, and now there's another software defeat going through in some Audi models now. Another rogue engineer? That hardly seems credible. Corporate bad faith and malfeasance? They're already in the thick of it.
- odabaxok 10y agoI do not know the details, but Horn - who blames the engineers in your article - was fired too, two weeks before your article was published (with two other executives): http://www.autoblog.com/2015/09/24/horn-hackenburg-hatz-fired-vw-diesel-scandal/ http://www.autoblog.com/2015/09/24/horn-hackenburg-hatz-fire...
- st3v3r 10y agoResigned with a golden parachute worth more than you or I will probably see in our lifetimes. Tell me, what actual consequences did that CEO face?
- the-dude 10y agoFYI, they are hiring 9k too. This is as much about profitability as a transition to electrical.
- patates 10y agoThis is a side effect (there definitely was a better word for this) of the crime, not the punishment.
- blahi 10y agoAlways ignoring the need for thoughtful and balanced research on the matter before forming an opinion seems to be the mantra. Reading more than the headline is hard, I know. There are no people getting fired, just retiring people are not getting replaced. I am far from the thought that this will be a lesson in humility to you though.
- ddorian43 10y agoWon't this increase the amount of work for the ones that remain ? Volkswagen increases time by 5% for all (610K total) ?
- jorge-d 10y agoBut still, it's a cut in the job pool available in these countries.
- blahi 10y agoOver 10 years?
- wott 10y agoWhere do you see "over 10 years"? It says "by 2020" and we are not in 2010, but in late 2016, so that's only 3 or 4 years.
- Pica_soO 10y ago"I don't care how you make it happen, i don't even want to know how you make it happen, but you will make it happen.." CEO-Speech en coated gloves- they protect from responsibility, and reduce water costs if you got to wash your hands off.
- aikah 10y agoDon't know why you're getting downvoted. Wolkswagen PR specifically blamed "the engineer culture" for them cheating. Like developers take any executive decision ...
- kuschku 10y agoYou do realize that the CEO and executives who made those decisions were considered engineers? Because they started as engineers at VW, and had climbed the corporate ladder? The Engineers actually standing in court now are also high-ranking managers. They just also happen to be professional engineers.
- yitchelle 10y agoI don't think the article mentioned if executives are exempted. I think the 30K is across the board.
- tiplus 10y agoI fail to see how this is HN related. Any hints are welcome.
- mavdi 10y agoI guess this might be related to the VW testing fuck up which was blamed on the software.
- banach 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tiplus 10y agoThanks, I guess I deserved the down votes for not reading this before.
- forgetsusername 10y agoHackerNews now considers all automotive companies the enemy of Tesla, and hence many people take pleasure in their problems. Perish the thought we root for the success of everyone.
- 10098201 10y agoLately all good comments seem to be greyed out. Time for a color inversion addon.
- dgacmu 10y agoOr, you know - VW was in the news in a major way for a certain little issue of fudging their emissions testing [1] and is expected to incur costs of US$18.3 billion associated with them [2], in the largest automotive settlement in history. At least one reader of HN (me) finds it interesting to see how this affects the company in terms of profits, sales, and jobs, and to understand the effects on the broader automotive market. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal [2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagen-says-diesel-car-buy-backs-to-cost-almost-9-billion-1461831943 http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagen-says-diesel-car-buy-b...
- quonn 10y agoI'm not sure if these are actually layoffs. In the German news it sounded more like nobody is getting fired - so perhaps they are simply not replacing workers who retire?
- selimthegrim 10y agoCorrect, just attrition.
- saiya-jin 10y agoThis is so much better - instead of people chasing latest management gossip, constantly looking over their shoulder and looking for other jobs, we don't hire unless it's necessary (ie regulatory requirements). Compared to having 2-3 random firing rounds per year when it was semi-random (even the best of the team were let go because they didn't have currently running long term project), morale is much higher (random meant you come in the morning like every other day, suddenly during day there is interview with your line manager and HR, then you have 5 mins to take your stuff from desk and are escorted by security out, and that's it)
- tomarr 10y agoBetter unless you are an early career worker looking for a job.
- cgvgffyv 10y agoChrist, what country are you in?
- logfromblammo 10y agoSounds like the US to me. Did I ever tell you about the time when I came in to work on Friday and found out that the next Wednesday would be the last day of work for everybody in the office? Sorry, folks, no severance either. If you have vacation days left, you'll be paid for those as you use them. Otherwise, each departing employee will be provided with 60% of a tissue to wipe away most of their tears.
- onion2k 10y agoThe most interesting thing in that article for me is that the profit margin that VW has at the moment is just 2%. A relatively small drop in car sales (from, say, autonomous Ubers?) could eat their entire profit and then some. Is the entire car industry run like that?
- kayoone 10y agoFrom 2011 to 2014 they did more than 10Bn in profit each year [1] on revenues of about 150-200Bn [2] so in most normal years it looks more like 5-10%. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272053/operating-profit-of-volkswagen-since-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272053/operating-profit-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264349/sales-revenue-of-volkswagen-ag-since-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264349/sales-revenue-of-...
- Dwolb 10y agoJust a note on that first link. It's operating profit which isn't showing the effects of taxes and income.
- lallysingh 10y agoI wouldn't count VW as representative of the industry right now.
- hengheng 10y agoVolkswagen pays out high salaries to their line workers, requiring little work by comparison (when measured in hours). VW pay is up 20-50% compared to comparable industry jobs.
- fetbaffe 10y agoVolkswegnehmen
- rtfs 10y agoThe central issue here is also that Volkswagen is going to change massively over the next 10 years. They are about to invest billions in e-mobility, connectivity, and autonomous driving. So the competition among car manufacturers, esp. Tesla and the rest, is going to increase over the next years. Tesla we be on new grounds in 10 years from now.
- secfirstmd 10y agoOr they are going to find themselves so far behind that they have to buy into a Google ecosystem to run their cars and like Android manufacturers they find themselves in the declining hardware margin business.
- randomgyatwork 10y agoReading the title this sounds like PR for "regulate us, lose jobs." But the actual content of the article suggest restructuring for a more sustainable future.
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- l3m0ndr0p 10y agoThey found a way to pay for the emissions cheat.
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