The car manufacturer Opel wants to further reduce its team at the three German locations in Rüsselsheim, Eisenach and Kaiserslautern. In consultation with the works council, the volunteer program is to be opened up to a further 1,000 employees, the Stellantis subsidiary announced on Thursday at an internal meeting. Partial retirement, early retirement and severance pay are possible. The rest of the workforce will then receive protection against dismissal until mid-2027, as a company spokesman confirmed. The “Handelsblatt” had previously reported on it.
The step goes back to a key point agreement with the works council from 2019. According to this, another wave of severance payments with up to 1,000 employees is also possible in the coming year if protection against dismissal for the remaining workforce is then extended to 2029. At the end of 2021, around 14,000 people were still working for the parent company Stellantis in Germany.
