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You know that all isn’t well in the world of automotive makers if one of the world leaders in car manufacturing feels the need to cut costs and downsize. German car making company BMW is in the process of cutting down close to nearly 8,100 jobs worldwide, to restructure and cut costs. What is more worrisome is that this announcement comes on the heels of reports that BMW has made record sales in 2007, up from the €47.77 billion in 2006 to almost €54 billion last year. However, BMW states that this restructuring has long term benefits aimed to maintain their profit margins at their newly set target of 10%.

BMW has had a long history of very strong job security and so this announcement comes as a surprise and has drawn criticism all around. However, a lot of insiders claim that BMW was massively overstaffed and this change was much needed and was a long time coming. Almost 2,500 permanent workers in Germany are likely to face the axe along with a decrease in nearly 5,000 part time positions, in addition to which nearly 500 workers world wide may be in danger of losing their jobs.

BMW has stated that these cuts are imperative to save nearly 500 million euros ($752 million). This is especially essential because of the loss that BMW is making due to their sales in the U.S. suffering because of the weak dollar and the troubles caused by the constantly rising Euro which is resulting in high production costs as most of their parts are produced in Germany.

BMW, however, states that there is no need to worry; most of their employees are in Germany and only 3% of them could be in danger. They are also in the process of hiring 500 new IT professionals and engineers for 2008.

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Tags: BMW, News //