The BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) joint venture has issued around 1,800 redundancies since 2 November, according to Chinese media. The reports were led by the Chinese tech magazine QuantumBit ROBO, citing statements from employees at the joint venture. The wave of layoffs affects the headquarters and production site in Shenyang. The manufacturing facility is the largest in the BMW Group worldwide, (previously) employing nearly 19,000 people. An official statement from BMW Brilliance regarding the layoffs has not yet been issued.

The redundancies in China primarily affect personnel on the production floor, employees in administration have also been let go. The layoffs have apparently affected workers from all age groups and hierarchical levels — from young employees to long-serving managers nearing retirement.

On a global level, BMW aims to cut around 8,000 jobs, which corresponds to approximately five per cent of its global workforce of 154,000 employees. In Germany, however, this reduction almost exclusively affects administrative and development departments and is being implemented without compulsory redundancies through a voluntary severance programme. The demand for these exit packages was so high that all 5,000 places were filled within three days, forcing the online site to close early. In contrast, the Chinese joint venture is opting for direct layoffs in manufacturing.

Laid-off employees in Shenyang are being offered a severance package under the “N+5” scheme, which consists of their years of service plus five months’ salary based on their basic wage. According to reports, many employees received their dismissals at short notice by phone or in individual meetings. Some were removed from their workstations during their shift or told not to appear in work clothing the following day.

Gradual cost-cutting measures at the Shenyang site have reportedly been evident for some time. Very few external specialists have been hired over the last three years, while expiring fixed-term contracts were rarely renewed, and the use of external service providers has been drastically reduced.

The trigger for the harsh austerity measures is the strained financial situation of the entire group. In the first half of 2026, the BMW Group’s pre-tax profit fell by 29.4 per cent, and the EBIT margin in the automotive business halved to 3.6 per cent, well below the long-term target of 8 to 10 per cent. Globally, deliveries in the first three quarters of 2026 declined by 4.9 per cent to approximately 1.71 million vehicles.

The primary driver of this development is the carmaker’s declining sales in the Chinese market, where BMW and Mini vehicle sales plummeted by 21.8 per cent to around 376,000 units during the same period. As a result, China’s share of global BMW sales shrank from 32.3 per cent in 2023 to 25.4 per cent in 2025.

mp.weixin.qq.com (QuantumBit ROBO), carnewschina.com