BMW has closed its voluntary severance program ahead of schedule after reaching the initiative's targets early. Tens of thousands of employees in Germany received their severance offers just under three weeks ago, and the program is now scheduled to conclude by mid-November.
By that time, all interested applicants will be informed whether a termination agreement has been finalized. According to sources, this will be the case for the majority of applicants, though not all. Further registrations for the program are no longer accepted.
BMW announced the severance program in Germany during the summer without specifying a concrete target figure. Corporate circles had previously indicated that approximately 8,000 jobs would be cut worldwide, with roughly half of those reductions in Germany. Based on these figures, an estimated 5,000 employees applied for the program.
When the severance offers were published at the beginning of October, employee interest in viewing individual offers was so high that internal systems were temporarily overloaded for several hours. Everyone interested was nonetheless able to register their application.
Previous statements from the company indicate that provisions for the severance program total slightly over one billion euros. On a purely mathematical basis, many of the severance agreements are expected to be well into the six-figure range.
BMW had originally set October 2027 as the target for the program, though this date referred to the final end point for the employment relationships. Sources indicate that not every contract will terminate immediately.
The severance program in Germany was directed exclusively at indirect employees, such as those in administration and development, while production workers were explicitly excluded. Consequently, staff based in Munich are particularly affected due to the concentration of non-production personnel at that location.
