We’ve all been there. You wake up one weekday morning, feeling fine but dreading the work day. So you decide to play hooky instead. While it might not be a big deal for you, some companies, like Volkswagen, are seemingly getting more strict about their workers skipping out on the job.
German magazine Bild recently got its hands on a “disciplinary statistics report” that Volkswagen issues internally every six months. The report, according to Bild, said VW fired 548 people across the globe for “violations of regulations” in the first half of the year. It said that 2,079 warnings were also issued to employees over that same time period.
The main reason for the firings, says Bild? People reportedly weren’t showing up to their posts. From the article, translated from German:
The most common reason for sanctions: unexcused absence. BILD learned that the core brand VW already suffered more than 300 layoffs in 2025—at the six German locations of Wolfsburg, Braunschweig, Emden, Hanover, Salzgitter, and Kassel alone! This roughly corresponds to the total number in the previous year. And it also means that the number of dismissals has risen rapidly in recent months.
I’ve reached out to a VW spokesperson to confirm these numbers, but I have yet to hear back.
The number of firings and warnings is just a tiny drop in the bucket for Volkswagen, which employs over 560,000 people globally. But the ramp-up in enforcement likely has something to do with the brand’s current financial status. The company’s profits fell 30 percent in the second quarter, with tariffs alone costing the Group $1.5 billion.
Though taking a day or two off might not sound like it could do a lot of harm, VW thinks differently, according to Bild (again, translated from German):
Absenteeism costs Volkswagen AG one billion euros annually. VW brand boss Thomas Schäfer (55) mentioned this figure at an internal event last year.
The fact that the company publishes internal statistics on warnings and terminations is a consequence of the diesel scandal. The message this should send is that misconduct will not be tolerated.
Bild, citing more internal, unnamed sources, expects hundreds more to be fired over absenteeism at VW before the year comes to an end. If you’re a VW plant employee reading this, I highly recommend not skipping out on the day, at least until the new year comes. I know it can be hard to wake up early and get ready for a grueling, physical eight hours, but repeated absences will make you an easy target.
Those few hundred won’t be the only people to lose their jobs. Back in December, union leaders and VW execs spent 70 hours negotiating to avoid plant closures. While the union was successful in stopping shutdowns, it couldn’t avoid the company implementing 35,000 job cuts by 2030. So even if you have perfect attendance, your position could be on the chopping block.
Top graphic image: Volkswagen
Hat tip to Carscoops!
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I don’t like my coworkers calling out with time they don’t have to use or being unexcused, so…. Good. I had a coworker at one of my old departments that called out every Tuesday for about 8 months. It got to the point where the one manager would be meeting with us in the mornings and say so and so isn’t in today and we’d say yeah we know, its Tuesday. And if Tuesday was a bad, really short staffed day to be out, the employee would come in, but then call out Wednesday. Needless to say, when they went WFH, they took advantage of that no oversight a bit too much and got themselves fired.
No more currywurst for you!
This sounds like Volksbaggin’ to me.
I’m as anti corporate feudalism as the next guy, but it does seem fair that you shouldn’t have a job you don’t actually do.
There is an article on CBC about GM Oshawa production moving to the US. A statement in the article said that absenteeism at the US factory was 22%. VW is discipling for what is basically a rounding error. Makes me wonder what is going on in Fort Wayne.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gm-production-fort-wayne-1.7642742
GM counts ICE detention/deportation as absenteeism.
in my plant it was ~15-20% (gm powertrain a decade ago). The union is fierce in protecting this as OK. Guys that get fired are rehired when the new contract comes around.
I’m gonna get me one of those MV vehicles.
Or a Mu Delta (ΜΔ).
Don’t like VW? Get a ΜΔ, the anti-Volkswagen.
Unexcused like didn’t call in sick or on vacation? Yeah, no, fire away. Life does happen where phones get inoperable and there’s no way to contact work for a legitimate excuse like little Johannes petted a porcupine on the way to school and had to spend the day in the hospital getting quills removed. Skipping work no call/no show consistently is definitely worthy of termination.
Why wouldn’t they fire someone for not showing up without explanation? I know if I was in charge, I would do the same.
I’m fascinated by how many people think VW is clearly in the wrong here. The article explicitly states the cause for firing is “unexcused absence”. It is not “taking days off”. They aren’t firing people for taking a vacation day. This sounds a hell of a lot like “no call, no show” absences, where you just ghost.
I have never worked at any place where a no call no show absence was tolerated absent a major legitimate excuse. And rightly so I think. Why are so many willing to demonize VW for not letting you slack, without at least letting your boss know?
They actually have a pretty rigorous system and they definitely know when you are not there when you should be. Good reasons or not… I once had to unexpectedly take a week off because my daughter ended up in the hospital, luckily my doctor also said I was not well enough to go into work that week and provided the paperwork for HR. Not as easy as just calling in sick with your boss.
They can fire you for that? Crap!
Maybe I should check in on work, see if they’re looking for me.
It’s better than just blindly firing everyone who is “probationary”.
Local rabble-rouser Jason Torchinsky, seen here turning a VW into a MA…
Official petition to use this image of Torch for any further VW news items in the Morning Dump (give the worker wearing white overalls and reaching up under the hood a break!). Add your signatures here and I’ll run it straight to the top of Autopian HQ!
That VW line worker working under the hood is there every day, stoically going about his job.
He doesn’t look like he’s having a good time. OTH, the photographer didn’t instruct him to say “cheese” or “kasse.”
Assembly line work looks like a recipe for malaise, at best. I’m retired and the longest I worked the same job was 24 years. But it was mostly field work, so the scenery and the people I was working with changed almost weekly. I enjoyed the variety.
VW worker: “This is the…wurst”
agreed, he has just been there every day, reliably doing his job!
Man, VW firing people isn’t enough for you; you just have to fire one of their people yourself?
Ha! I said give him a break, not a pink slip…
Agreed. That guy should get a royalty payment every time that photo is used. Maybe that’s the answer. If you get photographed and it gets distributed in print or on a website, you get a little bonus. If you’re not there, you won’t get photographed. And no bonus.
They’re issuing warnings before firing people, so I’m not sure this is as draconian as it sounds. When you know you’re breaking the rules and you know the boss has noticed, but you continue to do so, you should expect consequences.
IDK why this is newsworthy, but it does make me think of how right my parents were that just showing up on time, every day gets you pretty far in life.
I thought they were exaggerating: surely people in professional roles at least show up, even if I saw firsthand people being flaky at summer jobs in high school and college. Boy was I wrong – turns out people do this no matter the income level.
Just show up kids – it’ll get you far.
And my corollary to that (as a 10-year remote employee aftter 15 years in person) is that the world accepts a lot more incompetence when people are in person. There’s almost like bonus “credit” for just being there.
That’s why it’s actually so hard to be remote, even if you’re good at it — it feels like you have to work twice as hard in many cases.
But yeah, show up when you’re supposed to.
Absolutely. There’s an expectation that you’ll spend 150% of your time working at home and about 35% at work. Stand around and bullshit with your coworkers half the shift? No big deal. Take a few minutes to yourself at home? That’s why we need you to be in the office.
(Note: I am writing this comment while at work. Which is fine, since I am in the office.)
That’s such a company management culture problem. And ridiculous.
My company was 50% WFH long before the pandemic, and 95%+ today – MAYBE 10 people consistent work from our office. We mostly need it for the datacenter space, both for production and for lab gear. They seriously thought about not having an office at all and just getting a colo cage but a few people didn’t have good WFH situations (kids of roommates) so they kept the office. Plus it’s handy for meetings and the bit of shipping/receiving we do.
Having to waste a bunch of time to travel to a central location to just stare at a screen all day is such a complete waste on so many levels. And let’s face it, that is what the majority of white collar jobs are today. Obviously not a possibility if your job is making widgets or anything else that requires laying hands on things. My job is a hybrid in that I do spend significant time at client sites around the country, but no reason for me to leave home otherwise.
It’s wild how income level doesn’t seem to affect absenteeism, theft, or anything else, really. I’ve heard of people losing high-paying jobs because they were stealing sodas from work. If it affects anything, I’d say people at higher levels are more likely to just not show up and say they were working from home or in meetings or something.
I believe I heard this from Danny Ainge regarding athletes (and it may have originated somewhere else): “The best ability is availability”. Now an athlete is rarely not showing up, but injury or inability to push recovery, rehab, medical treatment can impact ones ability to show up.
My father was one of those people who believed that going the extra mile was a good way to advance your career. Too bad I’m one of those millennials blessed to enter the job market during the 2008 recession
Half a dozen once-in-a-lifetime economic events later, I still believe in doing nothing more than what my salary pays for. Be on time, be diligent with your work, but know your worth.
It’s incredible how far you can get by literally just being reliable.
Go to work when you’re expected to be at work, and do the work without being a pain in the ass. Often, that’s you need to do to be in line for a promotion.
As an independent installation-related business owner, my brother says his secret to success is to show up on time. This is in the laid back enclave of Santa Cruz CA where few folks show up on time for anything.
Love that photo of Jason. 🙂
If they’re hourly employees, they were doing their part to save the company money already.
Seriously, though, the numbers presented don’t seem high for a company of this size, so it makes sense that this is just a ramp-up of enforcement to reduce layoffs. They’ll save a few bucks by not replacing these workers and a few more by firing for cause instead of layoffs that probably include severance. Doesn’t seem like a huge thing, but it probably has some folks looking closely at whether they’re in compliance with company policies.
I hear 250 were employees assigned to install ID.4 window controls who could no longer go on knowing the suffering they were bringing to humanity.
TBF, they only needed half as many workers to do that.
I’d almost guarantee this was something going on for a very long time, and was common. Now that VW needs to save a lot of money and turn the company around, rules are being inforced.
VW employees fired for driving their own cars 😛
Yeah, they’re unreliable, so it’s no wonder they might not make it to work
Yeah when you need to cut people just crank up enforcement of policies you’d normally let slide, that way less layoff packages and such, typical business crap.
It seems like a good thing that they’d fire the bad employees before starting to layoff employees in general, to lessen the impact.
It makes way more sense than the return-to-office soft layoffs certain companies like to do. In that case you tend to lose your high performers who know they can find work at a less stupid company and not have to move.
Fired just for not showing up to work? These guys need a better union!
They should implement a work from home policy for factory workers. That would reduce absenteeism.
I’m not sure if it’s more morally reprehensible to fire someone out of the blue in an effort to save money or to fire someone for taking a couple days off as a way to save money.
How is this newsworthy? Isn’t it normal to fire people who skip work without a good reason?
Breaking: People who don’t go to work sometimes get fired. 1 in 1000 having significant attendance issues seems pretty normal, dare I say maybe a bit low.
I was curious so I looked up the time off policy at German VW plants. Apparently they get 30 days off per year in addition to holidays and weekends.
It seems like VW offers quite a lot of time off to its employees, which makes it even more puzzling why it is newsworthy for them to fire employees with unexcused absences.
30 days is pretty average for the EU, and it’s the bare minimum under German law. We only get a measly 28 days in the UK.
(And only 20 days will be up to the employee, ten days are reserved for mandatory public holidays, like Christmas etc.)
That still sounds like a lot compared to what we get in the US. A lot of jobs don’t offer any paid vacation days. For those that do, I’ve seen as low as 10.
Even if VW’s policy is normal for the EU, I’m still surprised it isn’t enough for some people, particularly considering family leave and sick leave policies are almost certainly more generous than what we have here.