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		</div><p>Volkswagen is to cut 30,000 jobs in a restructuring plan as it tries to recover from a scandal over cars rigged to cheat on diesel emissions tests.</p>
<p>The German company said the job cuts, which account to around 5% of its global workforce, are part of a long-term plan to improve profitability as well as shift resources and investment to electric-powered vehicles and digital services.</p>
<p>At Volkswagen&#8217;s headquarters in Wolfsburg, company officials said 23,000 of the job cuts will be in Germany and the measures will save some 3.7 billion euro (£3.2 billion) a year from 2020.</p>
<p>Volkswagen employs around 120,000 people at its namesake brand in Germany.</p>
<p>The company also said it would hire in some 9,000 new positions related to new technology and some of those jobs could go to current employees.</p>
<p>Chief executive Matthias Mueller said it was <i>&#8220;the biggest reform package in the history of our core brand&#8221;.</i> In addition to Volkswagen, the company also makes cars under other brands including Porsche, Audi, Seat, Skoda and Lamborghini.</p>
<p>The announcement caps a difficult year for Volkswagen, which has been embroiled in an emissions-rigging scandal that damaged the company&#8217;s reputation and cost it billions.</p>
<p>In response, Volkswagen has agreed to pay 15 billion dollars (£12 billion) to US authorities and owners of some 500,000 vehicles with software that turned off emissions controls. Around 11 million cars worldwide have the deceptive software.</p>
<p>The scandal has been a spur for the company to address longstanding problems, such high fixed costs at its manufacturing locations in Germany and excessively top-down management. Herbert Diess, head of the core Volkswagen brand, said the company had let costs rise and <i>&#8220;lost ground in terms of productivity&#8221;.</i> The changes, he said, would make it <i>&#8220;leaner and more efficient&#8221;.</i></p>
<p>The cuts are aimed at addressing Volkswagen&#8217;s longstanding cost issue.</p>
<p>With 624,000 employees around the world, it sells roughly the same number of cars as Toyota and General Motors &#8211; around 10 million a year. But Toyota does it with 349,000 workers and GM with 202,000.</p>
<p>One reason often cited for VW&#8217;s higher cost-base and headcount is the role that employee representatives play at the company. As at other large German companies, employees have half the seats on the board, a power they can use to resist moving production outside Germany or to suppliers. </p>
<p>In addition, the state of Lower Saxony, where the headquarters is located, owns a stake in the company and tends to support employee interests as well.<br />
The cuts will mainly fall on its 120,000-strong factory workforce in Germany. Job cuts are also foreseen in Brazil and Argentina.</p>
<p>The jobs will be reduced through voluntary departures such as early retirement and attrition. Labour representatives won a guarantee of no involuntary layoffs until 2025. The company has said it aims to cut non-essential costs and investments and shift resources toward battery-powered cars and internet-based services such as car-sharing and ride-sharing.</p>
<p>The company had been slower than some competitors to move toward electric cars but has shifted its view after the scandal underlined diesel&#8217;s limitations.</p>
<p>Volkswagen now says it plans to introduce more than 30 electric-powered vehicles by 2025, and to sell two to three million of them a year. To make the job cuts, the company has cut a deal with its powerful worker representatives.</p>
<p>Volkswagen has agreed to keep much of the future investment in new technology in Germany and to rely on voluntary departures such as early retirement, with no firings.</p>
<p>Top employee representative Bernd Osterloh said <i>&#8220;the next generation of electric vehicles will be made here in Germany, not abroad&#8221;.</i></p>
<p>Volkswagen&#8217;s package of measures received a lukewarm welcome in markets. The company&#8217;s share price closed down 0.8% at 128.05 euro, underperforming Germany&#8217;s benchmark DAX stock index.</p>
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