Volkswagen, Europe's largest producer of cars, announced to dismiss 600 temporary agency workers at their German site in Zwickau by June 2016. The company did not name any reasons, however the works council referred to the new strategy for the Phaeton model and to the emissions scandal as a reason for the job cuts. The bodywork of the model is manufactured in Zwickau and production will probably end in 2016. According to IG Metall, the production at the site will be stopped for four weeks in 2016. Therefore 8,500 employees are forced to take a holiday.

The Volkswagen Group with its headquarters in Wolfsburg is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers which currently employs 592,586 employees worldwide.