<story><title>Volkswagen plans 30K job cuts worldwide</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38023933</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>onion2k</author><text>The most interesting thing in that article for me is that the profit margin that VW has at the moment is just 2%. A relatively small drop in car sales (from, say, autonomous Ubers?) could eat their entire profit and then some. Is the entire car industry run like that?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lispm</author><text>You have to understand that Volkswagen and Volkswagen is not the same.&lt;p&gt;Volkswagen Group is the mother. The big one with &amp;gt;600k employees.&lt;p&gt;The Volkswagen Group has several brands&amp;#x2F;divisions - I&amp;#x27;ve added the profit margin for 1st half 2016:&lt;p&gt;* VW cars: margin 1.7%&lt;p&gt;* Audi: 8.8%&lt;p&gt;* Skoda: 9.6%&lt;p&gt;* Porsche: 16.7%&lt;p&gt;* Seat: 2.1%&lt;p&gt;Then there are VW trucks, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, Ducati, Scania and MAN. All those are brands of Volkswagen Group.</text></comment>
<story><title>Volkswagen plans 30K job cuts worldwide</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38023933</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>onion2k</author><text>The most interesting thing in that article for me is that the profit margin that VW has at the moment is just 2%. A relatively small drop in car sales (from, say, autonomous Ubers?) could eat their entire profit and then some. Is the entire car industry run like that?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>this_user</author><text>VW has long suffered from very low levels of productivity. According to Bloomberg, they employ as many people as Toyota and GM combined while making half as many cars as the combined entity.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;gadfly&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2016-11-18&amp;#x2F;vw-job-cuts-sound-big-but-do-little-to-boost-efficiency&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;gadfly&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2016-11-18&amp;#x2F;vw-job-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Part of the problem are the unions and a large ownership stake by the state, which is naturally not very interested in having their constituent lose their jobs.</text></comment>