By the end of 2008, BMW will relieve 8,100 workers of their jobs. More than half of them are part-timers; another 2,500 are full-time workers in Germany where BMW employs 75% of its workers and sells 20% of its product. 600 overseas jobs will be cut, but at the same time as all of these cutbacks (the first job cuts since the turn of the century for BMW), the builder of the Ultimate Driving Machines plans to hire 500 skilled workers.
BMW has more than 100,000 employees worldwide and sold 1.5million vehicles last year. Along with the 1-series, 3-series, 5-series, 6-series, 7-series, Z4 roadster and coupe, X3, X5, Mini, and Rolls-Royce; BMW will soon begin building the X6 in North Carolina. With a substantial portion of its sport-activity vehicles being sold in the USA, it has always seemed obvious – at least in a financial and logistical sense – that BMW would build its first SAV, the X5, in Spartanburg. Now, BMW is taking Z4 production back home to Europe and moving the X3 to America, as well.
In order for the Spartanburg plant to be fit and ready for a three-pronged approach to sport-ute building, BMW is investing $750,000,00 in readying the plant to build all the X models for all world markets. Production should hit 240,000 by 2012.
