Volkswagen aims to axe up to 100,000 jobs in a “profound” strategic shift to counter trade tariffs, stagnating markets and, above all, fierce competition from China.
It will cut one in six of its 660,000 jobs worldwide and production at four German factories — the largest restructure in automotive industry history. China is out to do to Europe’s car industry what it’s already done to its solar panel industry — destroy it. Judging from the pathetic response of the EU so far to this threat (the UK is equally pathetic) it’s likely to succeed. China also aims to dominate batteries, wind power machinery, machine tools, Pharma and chips — with its mercantilist ‘industrial policy of everything’. China 2.0 poses a far bigger threat to European industry than China 1.0 over 20 years ago. Some forecasts predict over 50% of what’s left of Europe’s manufacturing base will be gone in a decade.