Cost cutting

Daimler said it plans to cut 1,000 jobs at Mercedes-Benz by March, 2010, using a basket of incentives including buyouts and part-time contracts.

Despite a return to profitability and recent comments by the company that it is well-positioned for the future, the German carmaker is seeking to trim costs further. Mercedes aims to trim its workforce down to around 44,000 by the spring.

Incentive deals for younger workers

The company said it would offer German workers up to the age of 50 a variety of deals to encourage them to leave voluntarily - thus sticking to an earlier labor deal that rules out forced layoffs at German operations until 2011.

The company did not release financial details, but a spokeswoman told reporters that the exact magnitude of restructuring at the company depends on how many employees take up the offer.

Reuters news service reported that the cost-cutting move could mean Daimler write-downs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Plans for further cuts

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche had recently told reporters that the number of employees at the company would sink "noticeably" in the coming year.

At the end of September, Stuttgart-based Daimler employed around 260,000 people worldwide - nearly 1,000 fewer than a year earlier. Its German work force lost 5,200 jobs last year to reach its current level of 163,500.

Zetsche put Daimler on a strict cost-saving regime last spring, cutting working hours, among other measures. The moves saved the company 3.5 billion euros by September. But given the continued collapse of the luxury car and truck market, Daimler is still seeking to cut costs even further.

jen/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Sam Edmonds