The layoffs come days after US President Donald Trump threatened 50 percent tariffs on EU goods.
Swedish automaker Volvo is set to cut 3,000 white-collar jobs amid restructuring efforts as prices begin to rise due to tariff-driven uncertainty.
The company announced the news on Monday. The layoffs come as the Swedish automaker tries to resurrect its rock-bottom share price and drum up better demand for its cars by restructuring part of its business and cutting costs.
CEO Hakan Samuelsson, who was recently brought back to the role after heading the company for a decade until 2022, unveiled a programme in April to slash costs by $1.9bn (18 billion Swedish crowns), including a substantial cut to Volvo’s white-collar staff, who make up 40 percent of its workforce.
“It’s white collar in almost all areas, including R&D [research and development], communication, human resources,” Samuelsson told the Reuters news agency.
The layoffs represent around 15 percent of the company’s office staff, Volvo Cars said in a statement, and would incur a one-time restructuring cost of $160m (1.5 billion crowns).
Volvo Cars’ new CFO Fredrik Hansson told Reuters that while all of its departments and locations would be impacted, most of the redundancies will happen in Gothenburg.
“It’s tailored to make us structurally more efficient, and then how that plays out might vary a bit depending on the area. But no stone is left unturned,” Hansson said.
With most of its production based in Europe and China, Volvo Cars is more exposed to new United States tariffs than many of its European rivals, and has said it could become impossible to export its most affordable cars to the US.
The company said in a press release that it would finalise a new structural setup by the third quarter of this year.
Volvo withdrew its financial guidance as it announced its cost cuts last month, pointing to unpredictable markets amid weaker consumer confidence and trade tariffs causing turmoil in the global auto industry.
The layoff announcement comes only days after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on imports from the European Union from June 1. On Monday, however, he backed away from that date, restoring a July 9 deadline to allow for talks between Washington and Brussels.
As a result, Volvo’s CEO said the move would make it harder for it to sell one of its electric vehicles (EVs) — the EX30 EV that is made in Belgium — in the US market.