Volkswagen’s finance director Hans Dieter Poetsch has suggested up to 30,000 jobs could be lost in Germany if the IG Metall union does not accept cost reduction plans including a wage freeze.

The union has reacted angrily to Poetsch’s statement, made to the European edition of the Wall Street Journal. Volkswagen’s cost reduction policy, announced recently in response to an IG Metall claim for a 4% wage increase and job guarantees, aims to preserve 176 544 jobs in Germany while reducing labour costs by 30% by 2011.