PSA to slash thousands of jobs in Europe

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PARIS, Oct 26 (AFP): French auto giant PSA Peugeot Citroen Wednesday said it planed to slash thousands of jobs in Europe as part of an 800-million-euro cost-cutting plan amid a stagnating European car market. Nearly 6,800 jobs among group employees and subcontractors are at risk. The group announced to unions at a meeting Wednesday that 800 temporary positions would already be cut by the end of the year, a union source said. For 2012, the company said, another 1,000 manufacturing jobs would be cut through voluntary departures, up to 2,500 non-production positions would be eliminated and another 2,500 jobs were expected to be cut through the elimination of outsourcing contracts. The cost-cutting programme comes after the company announced that sales in its cars division were down 1.6 per cent to 9.3 billion euros ($12.94 billion) in the third quarter.