Stockholm - Volvo Cars, the Swedish carmaker owned by US giant Ford, is to shed some 2,700 jobs mainly in its home base, the company said Monday. The announcement was made after unions and management concluded talks. The outcome suggested that 1,000 fewer jobs were to be cut than initially signalled.
Volvo Cars chief executive Stephen Odell said that while he regretted the measures he was "satisfied with the fact that our cost reduction program has been successful and it has enabled us to stay with a lower number of redundancies."
About 2,300 of the 2,700 job cuts would impact blue-collar employees. Volvo Cars has a 25,000-strong workforce.
An additional 680 Volvo employees outside of Sweden were to be made redundant and contracts with some 1,200 consultants were to be cancelled.
Unions at Volvo headquarters in Gothenburg, western Sweden urged the Swedish government to step in to support the ailing industry, citing that the government needed to use "funds reserved for bad times."
Both Ford and rival US auto giant GM, which owns Swedish carmaker Saab, have said they were planning to sell their Swedish subsidiaries.
Ford bought Volvo in 1999, while GM took control over Saab the year after.
