There’s an interesting story shaping up currently in Germany with Volkswagen workers taking center stage. It seems clear that the car manufacturer is facing an issue with its employees over cost cutting measures in order to increase margins.
Although, as reported, the Volkswagen group is well ahead of target to meet its sales goal of 10 million vehicles in 2014, there are some apparent ‘profit’ concerns due to which cost cutting measures will be in place.
The group is facing competitive pressures from Asian manufactures Toyota and Hyundai which are currently running at much stronger margins. Several experts following this story have concluded that this may mean that Volkswagen’s ties with its workers are no longer at the high point they have seen over years.
As the European car manufacturer tries to sail through what does seem to be a turbulent issue, we tried to look up our Analytics database to see if we see any trends in the senior professional segment for Volkswagen (in Germany).
Lo and behold, the data does seem to have an interesting trend for us! Around the time that the press releases of Volkswagen’s employee issues have come out in the public, we also see a trend of ‘active seekers’ in the ‘senior professional’ market that Experteer caters to, going up.
The breaking point seems to be the end of July when the news started flowing in. In the past, Volkswagen’s senior professionals in terms of ‘actively seeking jobs’ have been below the average active seekers in the German car market and this has reversed in July!
It is unclear whether Volkswagen has internally tried to shift senior professionals into other low cost markets like India, but there does seem to be a feeling of ‘urgency’ that has cropped up in senior management professionals. We will continue to watch this story closely, and report if this trend reverses!
But till then, here’s hoping that for one of the largest car manufacturers in Europe, the employee troubles do get sorted.
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VW plans $6.8B in cost cutting to bolster profit
