The automotive industry is changing faster than ever. The transition to e-mobility and digitalization is making our industry and Volkswagen itself more sustainable and opening up numerous new business models. At Volkswagen, we want to shape this transformation with foresight so that we can achieve the best results for customers, the company, the workforce and other stakeholders.
The transformation will impact the workforce in many different ways. The company will provide many employees with further qualifications and thus prepare them for new jobs. The creation, conversion and dismantling of jobs will characterize the next few years. Within this framework, Volkswagen is adjusting the size of the workforce along the demographic curve to the new conditions. The most important instrument here is the use of semi-retirement, with which Volkswagen enables interested employees to retire earlier.
We see their continuous scientific support as an important factor in the success of the transformation. Because we can only control the transformation of the workforce in the long term if the right measures are initiated on the basis of reliable data. In addition to early retirement, this includes above all further training and retraining, but also the development of new fields of activity such as battery cell production.
Under the patronage of our Volkswagen Sustainability Advisory Board, which brings in external, international and cross-industry perspectives, we have commissioned two studies in this subject area.
For the technical foundation and operationalization of our new People Strategy, we were able to draw on the results of the first extensive research project "EMDI @ VW - Effects of electromobility and digitization on the quality and quantity of employment at Volkswagen", which we carried out in 2019 and 2020 together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering and Organization IAO in Germany.
The results of the study can be found here.
In 2021 we have set up a follow-up study. In cooperation with the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen /Nuremberg, the findings of the Fraunhofer study are to be used and deepened in order to identify the potential and resources of people, organization and learning to shape the digital and ecological transformation.
Further information on the members and the work of the Volkswagen Sustainability Advisory Board is available at The Sustainability Council of Volkswagen Group