Porsche Holding Salzburg ends corona short-time work

• 6,400 employees fully resume their positions
• An important step towards a return to normality
• Dealers hope the government will offer incentives to boost car sales

Salzburg, 29 May 2020 - The management of Porsche Holding Salzburg (PHS) has decided to end corona short-time work for 6,400 employees at the end of May. This arrangement has been in place since 1 March 2020.

"Even if this step is not yet justified from an economic point of view, we want to make an active contribution to restarting the economy.

We are therefore sending a positive signal both to our dealerships and service centres as well as to our customers and employees, with a view to doing everything in our power to support the relaunch of the automotive trade following the corona crisis," says Dr Hans Peter Schützinger, CEO of the Porsche Holding Salzburg Management Board.

Next Tuesday, 2 June, the employees of PHS will fully resume their positions, but under clearly regulated conditions. In order to avoid all the employees returning to the offices at the same time, until further notice and wherever possible they will work remotely from home on an alternating basis. This is also intended to ensure that all officially prescribed safety and hygiene measures can be complied with and that the possibility of infection by the coronavirus is largely avoided.

Activity within service centres has resumed in recent weeks, whereas new car sales are picking up more slowly than expected, meaning that incentives are urgently required to boost this business area as well.

The French government has recently decided on incentives for the purchase of new cars, and in Germany, a decision on this is expected next week.

"Our dealerships were hit hard by closures during the corona crisis and now urgently require assistance. This is why we hope that the Austrian federal government will also contribute to stimulating new car sales with an eco-premium on new cars, graduated according to CO₂ emissions, and investment subsidies for corporate customers," says Dr Schützinger, adding, "exclusively supporting the purchase of e-cars in this phase, as ecologically sensible as this might be, would be insufficient. This is because, on the one hand, the supply of electric vehicles available at short notice is still very low and would therefore not have any effect, and on the other hand, it is important to act quickly at this stage and primarily to reduce existing stocks, which are very capital-intensive and have a negative impact on dealers' liquidity. Regardless of this, we will continue to promote e-mobility."

The Volkswagen Group is committed to the Paris climate targets and is continuing its electric car offensive. Volkswagen plans to launch the I.D3 in late summer. Numerous other models from the Group will follow in the coming months and years, thereby making an important contribution to helping electric mobility achieve its breakthrough.