Volvo Car to cut 1,000 jobs for saving plan

STOCKHOLM - Volvo Car Company announced Wednesday to lay off 1,000 employees including consultants by the end of this year to help implement its saving plan of 1.5 billion Swedish kronor (about 238 million US dollars).

"We have to adapt the company to the reality. We have done it with our workshops and now we have to do it with our offices," Hakan Samuelsson, CEO and president of Volvo Car, was quoted as saying at an interview by the Swedish Television SVT.

Sameulsson would not make any comments on the actual effects of the job reduction on the company but he said those strategically important models would not be affected.

"We don't see it as dramatic and rather we are just trying to balance our resources and make most of what we have," Magnus Sundemo, Swedish engineer was quoted as saying by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

He added that it was good for the company to ensure the present workforce for the company as there had been too many consultants compared to permanent employees in the company.

In the summer of 2012 Volvo Car let go about 800 employees working in the factories and in November last year the company was working on a comprehensive cost saving package plan, in which further job reduction was included as development of new models slowed down.

At the beginning of 2013, Volvo Car's sales plummeted by 16.8 percent in the European market in January, nearly two times as Europe's average.