FRANKFURT: BMW plans to hire thousands of permanent staff after cutting the number of its temporary workers by half, a German magazine reported on Saturday.
BMW's management has struck an agreement with the company's works council that will see the number of temporary workers fall to around 6,000 from about 12,000 currently,
Wirtschaftswoche magazine reported in an article released ahead of publication on Monday.
At the same time, BMW would offer permanent positions to thousands of workers, many of whom are expected to come from the current pool of temporary staff, the magazine added.
The share of temporary workers in BMW's labour force would therefore fall to around 810 percent from 17 percent, the magazine said, citing sources involved in the talks.
"The negotiations over a new employment contract have not yet ended but have progressed very far," the magazine quoted a BMW spokesman as saying.
"An agreement in the coming weeks is very likely," he added.
Car makers and other manufacturers in Germany have relied heavily on temporary and shortterm contract workers in recent years to balance out swings in production and demand.
Over in France, the country's Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg has called on the management of struggling car maker PSA Peugeot Citroën to divulge its intentions for the future of several of its plants quickly, as fears mount over future job cuts.
Europe's second biggest automaker is looking for ways to make more cost savings this year and preparing to shut down one of its two Paris plants, union officials said on Thursday.
"The decisions that you could take would undoubtedly have consequences on the entire car industry and especially outsourcing," Montebourg said in a letter addressed to Peugeot Chief Executive Philippe Varin that was emailed to Reuters on Saturday.
"I would like as a result that the PSA's management makes its intentions known as quickly as possible."
Unemployment has risen for 13 months in France with the number of jobless people hitting the highest level in April since August 1999, the last month for which figures are available.
The new Socialist government has taken an active role in managing the situation as it tries to avoid a wave of factory closures.
French President Francois Hollande has handed Montebourg the task of reversing the industrial sector's decline.
In his letter, Montebourg called on PSA to begin "social dialogue to create a collective weapon to face its potential difficulties with regard to its employees."
PSA also briefed staff last week on plans to reduce production of the Peugeot 208 small car at Poissy, west of Paris, a move seen as paving the way for the closure of Peugeot's long-threatened factory in the northern Paris suburb of Aulnay sous Bois.
Montebourg said he had appointed a government expert to establish a detailed and rigorous diagnosis on the real situation at PSA and the possible measures the group was planning to take.
The minister also said he planned to create an action plan for the future of the French automobile sector.
PSA declined to comment.
Peugeot's situation has deteriorated since last year, when the core autos division swung to a loss, punished by the company's exposure to France and other European markets badly hit by the region's debt crisis.
-Reuters