Labor market: BMW closes severance program for employees

Munich. Because thousands of employees want to leave the company, BMW is closing its severance program early. According to the car manufacturer, the goal of the voluntary cancellation program was achieved early on. Just three weeks ago, tens of thousands of employees in Germany received their severance offers. The program is now scheduled to be completed by mid-November.

Then all interested parties should know whether a termination agreement has been concluded, according to sources. This will be the case for most, but not all, interested parties. Further registrations for the program are no longer possible.

BMW announced the severance pay program in Germany in the summer without giving a specific target number. At the time, corporate circles also said that around 8,000 jobs would be cut worldwide, a good half of them in Germany. This means that around 5,000 employees have registered interest in the severance pay program.

When the severance offers were published at the beginning of October, employees' interest in seeing their personal offer was so great that, according to circles, the systems were temporarily overloaded. But this only applied for a few hours. Anyone who was interested could register it.

From previous statements by the group it can be deduced that the provisions for the severance payment program amount to a good one billion euros. In purely mathematical terms, many severance pay agreements are likely to be well into the six-figure range.

BMW originally stated October 2027 as the target for the severance payment program. However, this refers to the latest end for the employment relationships. As we can hear from circles, not every contract will end immediately.

In Germany, the severance pay program was only aimed at so-called indirect employees, such as administration or development. Employees in production were explicitly excluded. Therefore, employees in Munich are particularly affected - simply because most people there work outside of production.