FRANKFURT, Sept 9 (AFP) - Volkswagen (VW), Europe's biggest car maker, said Thursday that up to 30,000 jobs could be axed in Germany, or 17 percent of the group's German workforce, if unions do not agree to deep cost-cutting plans.
"If we end up nowhere, which means no movement (in the negotiations) ... this would be an extreme negative for the employment situation in Germany," VW's finance chief Hans Dieter Poetsch said in an interview published in the Thursday edition of Wall Street Journal Europe.
Asked how many jobs the company might have to cut, he replied: "30,000-plus".
A VW spokesman subsequently tried to play down the number, insisting that the "30,000-number is based on a purely mathematical model for a scenario when the cost situation does not improve but this is pure theory."
VW, faced with falling sales, is seeking a two-year wage freeze and increased flexibility of working hours for its employees in Germany in the upcoming round of pay talks, scheduled to begin next week.
For its part, the powerful IG Metall labour union is calling for wage increases of four percent and job guarantees for employees at VW's six production sites around the country.
IG Metall reacted angrily to the newspaper interview, saying Poetsch's comments would lead to an escalation of the wage talks.
"It's completely unacceptable that yet another VW board member is pouring oil onto the fire of the wage dispute," said IG Metall's chief negotiator Hartmut Meine.
"It is also irresponsible to play with peoples' fears for the their jobs," Meine said. "Employees are not abstract numbers. It is unusual that a finance chief makes a comment about the wage round, especially before the talks have even started."
IG Metall would stick by its demands for wage increases of four percent and concrete guarantees for the 103,000 production jobs in Germany.
"We'll fight now more than ever to push through our demands," Meine said.