No forced layoffs through 2035, and €2.1 billion earmarked for the Zuffenhausen and Weissach sites over the same period. That’s the trade at the center of the agreement Porsche AG’s executive board signed with its general works council in late July, alongside the IG Metall union and the Südwestmetall employers’ association. The goal, on paper: keep the company competitive while protecting most of the jobs at its two historic German sites.
The « Future Package » works both ways. In exchange for employment and site protection through 2035, with compulsory redundancies ruled out for that entire stretch, staff and management accept a set of measures aimed at cutting personnel costs and adding flexibility. The specifics: 3.5 percent of current and future collectively agreed pay increases will be deferred until 2035 for employees under Porsche’s own pay framework. Senior and top management will forgo an equivalent share of base-pay increases in 2027 and 2028.
Christmas bonuses take a hit too. The voluntary company-paid portion drops from 45 percent to 5 percent by 2035, which shrinks the bonus from as much as a full month’s salary down to 60 percent of one. The discretionary special payment will be tied more closely to company profitability going forward. Mobile working gets capped at eight days a month, down from twelve. Break arrangements and production cycle times are also being adjusted.
The agreement includes what Porsche describes as a socially responsible reduction of a further 5,000 jobs by 2035, achieved mainly through natural attrition, demographic effects, an expanded partial-retirement scheme, and voluntary severance deals. In return, IG Metall members get a new membership bonus: one extra day off per year plus a €200 annual voucher. Every employee receives a one-time transformation bonus of €1,500 in August 2026; union members get an additional €411 on top, for €1,911 total.
CEO Michael Leiters frames the deal as the foundation for the group’s « Sportwagenschmiede 35 » strategy, due for a full presentation at a Capital Markets Day on October 7. Ibrahim Aslan, who chairs the general works council, admits few people would have bet on an agreement running all the way to 2035 given the current climate, and points to shared sacrifice on both sides as the reason it came together. Tamara Hübner of IG Metall Stuttgart calls it proof that industrial transformation can be negotiated rather than imposed, when works councils and union membership are strong enough to shape the terms, adding that the company now carries the responsibility to deliver on its investment promises.
Porsche says the package secures continued production of its two-door sports cars in Zuffenhausen for the long term, allows the Sonderwunsch personalization programme to expand in volume, and keeps development work for every model line based in Weissach. Both sites carry the weight of the company’s industrial history.
Zuffenhausen isn’t just another factory town for Porsche. It’s where the company rebuilt after the war, a direct continuation of Porsche’s earliest steps in the car industry (French-language resource), rooted in the legacy Ferdinand Porsche left behind and that his son Ferry carried forward once the war ended, a story told in our piece on Ferdinand Porsche’s lasting influence on the brand (French-language resource). This kind of large-scale social compromise, reached without abandoning the sports car lineup that defines the company, fits a pattern stretching back decades (French-language resource) of gradual adaptation over sudden change. It’s a pattern that also shows up in how the company just steadied its books despite a sharp drop in deliveries, detailed in our report on Porsche’s first-half 2026 financial results, and in the discipline that carried its racing programme to this year’s IMSA Endurance Cup titles despite a rough weekend on track.
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