BMW HR portal crashes as 40,000 employees check severance offers
BMW's internal HR portal went down on Thursday after around 40,000 eligible employees tried to check their personalized severance packages.
The sudden spike in traffic caused slowdowns and outages, with a spokesperson saying the crash was simply due to "As expected, employees were very curious to view the emails, and consequently, usage was very high after they were sent," after everyone got notified about the voluntary layoff offers.
BMW plans 8,000 German administrative cuts
This comes after BMW launched a voluntary redundancy program on Thursday, aiming to cut 8,000 administrative jobs in Germany by 2027.
Production workers aren't affected: this move is mostly about streamlining office roles and trimming management by about 20%.
It's part of a bigger trend too: other carmakers like Volkswagen and Renault are making similar cuts to deal with rising costs and tough competition.