Peugeot announces plan to slash costs, jobs in 2012

French auto giant PSA Peugeot Citroen on Wednesday announced an 800-million-euro cost-cutting plan for next year that is expected to include lay-offs amid a stagnating European car market. "It's quite possible there will be an impact on the workforce," the company's chief financial officer Frederic Saint-Geours said during a teleconference. Management is to inform unions on details of the plan at a meeting later Wednesday. The company, France's largest automaker and Europe's second-largest, employs over 205,000 people worldwide, including 100,000 in France. The savings plan comes after the company announced that sales in its cars division was down 1.6 percent to 9.3 billion euros ($12.94 billion). However, overall sales were up 3.5 percent in the third quarter to 13.45 billion euros. Saint-Geours said the company expected growth in the European market to stabilise, but to grow seven percent in China, six percent in Latin America and 30 percent in Russia. CGT union representative Bruno Lemerle slammed the savings plan as "scandalous." "Logically when the results are good, the company should employ people, try to develop," Lemerle told AFP, pointing to the increased overall turnover figure.