Porsche to Cut Jobs, Extend Hours

Porsche, the German maker of luxury sports cars, wants to extend working hours and cut jobs, its chairman said in a newspaper interview Wednesday at a time when other car makers in Germany are also drastically reducing their workforce in an attempt to drive down costs. "In our production facilities, those jobs that become free are not being replaced since we have been able to sharply increase output per worker," Porsche chairman Wendelin Wiedeking told the Financial Times Deutschland without providing any concrete figures. In August 2003, when Porsche held its last headcount, the car maker employed a workforce of just over 10,000. Porsche has embarked on a programme to boost productivity to help counter the negative effects of the weak dollar, Wiedeking said. "We're holding intensive talks with workers, for example about the infamous five-minute 'pee break'" that forms part of a wage

agreement in Porsche's home state of Baden-Württemberg, Wiedeking said. The break, which gives workers five minutes every hour to go the toilet, "is a relic that needs to be looked at," the chairman said. Fellow car maker DaimlerChrysler recently succeeded in abolishing the break and extending working hours at the end of a recent fierce battle with employees. (AFP)