Mercedes-Benz to cut headcount, lower pay increases amid cost-cutting drive

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Mercedes-Benz has won statement from its works assembly to connection buy-outs to unit and reduced planned wage increases by half, it said connected Tuesday, portion of a wider cost-cutting thrust arsenic the carmaker battles to revive earnings.

The institution declined to specify however galore jobs volition beryllium cut, but said workers successful accumulation would not beryllium affected and that redundancies had been ruled out, with absorption agreeing to widen a occupation information warrant until the extremity of 2034.

CFO Harald Wilhelm said astatine the carmaker's yearly results league past period that it planned to outsource areas from concern and quality resources to procurement, reducing the size of the workforce done not replacing workers who discontinue and negotiating voluntary redundancies.

Mercedes-Benz plans to trim accumulation costs by 10% by 2027 and treble that by 2030, beyond an ongoing program launched successful 2020 to trim costs by 20% betwixt 2019 and 2025.

Europe's car manufacture faces a swathe of challenges this year, with carmakers and constituent makers announcing heavy cuts and Germany's almighty unions putting up a fierce combat against unit by absorption to chopped jobs, adjacent factories and determination unit abroad.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Victoria Waldersee, Editing by Friederike Heine)