Employee bonus 2021: Opel/VW/Mercedes employees receive profit sharing

Car manufacturers reward their employees with bonuses after a good business year. Opel, Ferrari, Mercedes, Porsche and VW are paying out these bonuses for 2021!

Opel is giving its employees a share in the profits of the 2021 financial year with a bonus payment of EUR 2,000 each, announced Opel boss Uwe Hochschurtz on April 21, 2022 in an interview with the Bild newspaper. Thus, within the Stellantis Group, there is a clear difference between the profit sharing in the French and German parts. The bonus announced by CEO Carlos Tavares in February 2022 amounts to 4000 to 4400 euros. A new agreement is to be drawn up for future investments.

After a successful 2021 financial year, Porsche is paying its employees a bonus of up to 7,900 euros – 50 more than in the previous year. According to this, employees at the German locations of Porsche AG and subsidiaries are entitled – including Porsche Leipzig GmbH. The special payment is linked to the appeal of the board and the works council to help people who are fleeing because of the Russia-Ukraine war. The CEO of the Stuttgart carmaker, Oliver Blume, said when the balance sheet was presented that 2021 was the most successful year in the company’s history. Sales increased by more than 15 percent to a good 33 billion euros. The bottom line was a profit of four billion euros, after 3.2 billion euros in the previous year.

For 2021, VW employees will receive a slightly higher bonus payment overall than in the previous year. After the deduction of 1700 euros already transferred in November 2021, a further 1300 euros per person should flow into the accounts of the workforce with the May 2022 salary. This was announced by works council chief Daniela Cavallo at the beginning of March 2022 in the company magazine “Mitbestimmt”. The increase achieved is to result from an additional “recognition bonus” in the VW company tariff. There was an extra 2700 euros for the weaker Corona year 2020. The value had thus fallen well below the level of several previous years; for 2019, for example, the employees at the western German locations who were entitled to bonuses received EUR 4,950. The tariff bonus is essentially based on the operating results of the main division VW passenger cars and the brand of light commercial vehicles (VWN). However, other sub-criteria are also created. The works council attributes the fact that in the end there was a slightly higher payment compared to 2020, although the car manufacturer is struggling with drastically underutilized capacities and shift cancellations due to the chip crisis, to “solidarity with the group”. If the IPO of the subsidiary Porsche is implemented as planned, the employees will receive a further 2000 euros.

The 4,500 Ferrari employees can also look forward to a bonus for 2021 of 11,500 euros. Despite the Corona crisis, the sports car manufacturer sold more cars than ever before in 2021. The profit has increased by a third to a good 1.5 billion euros, as Ferrari reports. The award is a recognition of the high quality standards.

The approximately 100,000 Mercedes employees will receive a bonus of up to 6,000 euros for 2021. This was announced by HR Director Sabine Kohleisen and General Works Council Chairman Ergun Lümali in mid-December 2021. The bonus is to be paid to employees in February 2022. Kohleisen said: “The extraordinary development of our company is a team effort.” 2021 was not easy. She is all the more pleased that the employees can be paid a record profit-sharing bonus. The head of the general works council of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, Lümali, added that the bonus was the right signal after another turbulent year with Corona, the semiconductor crisis, the resulting short-time work and permanent home office for many employees. The approximately 25,000 eligible Daimler Truck employees in Germany receive the same bonus as their employees in the car division. The company was recently spun off from the Daimler group and aims to become more profitable as an independent manufacturer. For the first time, Mercedes trucks and cars are driving on separate routes. The HR Director at Daimler Truck, Jürgen Hartwig, said that this mammoth project was able to succeed in the midst of a global pandemic, was largely due to the commitment of the employees and was a true team effort. General Works Council Chairman Michael Brecht called the year 2021 coming to an end “an emotional roller coaster ride”. The pandemic and delivery bottlenecks on the one hand and great economic success and the independence of Daimler Truck on the other hand ensured this.