Volvo Cars to cut 5% of jobs at South Carolina plant as tariffs bite

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Volvo Cars said on Wednesday it would make production changes and cut 5% of the workforce at its Charleston plant in the United States due to changing market conditions and evolving trade policies, including tariffs.

A spokesperson for Volvo Cars said the changes would affect about 125 of the 2,500 employees at its factory in South Carolina. 

It was not immediately clear which positions would be affected or how the cuts would affect production at the plant in Charleston.

Volvo Cars, which is majority-owned by China's Geely Holding, said it remained committed to creating 4,000 jobs in South Carolina and that it still planned to boost output there in the future. 

It added in an emailed statement that the cuts were not included in the upcoming redundancies flagged alongside its earnings for the first quarter last week, when it said it would slash costs by 18 billion Swedish crowns ($1.88 billion).  

Volvo Cars declined to comment on when it would be able to disclose more details around the upcoming job cuts.  

The carmaker said the United States remained a key part of its long-term strategy and that it was focused on sharpening its U.S. product line-up and manufacturing.

Volvo Cars has nearly 43,000 employees globally according to its 2024 annual report. Some 29,000 are in Europe, around 10,000 in Asia and 3,000 in the Americas region. 

While the Charleston factory has a capacity to produce 150,000 cars annually, it currently only makes the EX90 electric SUV and Polestar's model 3 with most cars imported from Europe.

In an April retail sales update the company said it had sold 1,316 EX90s in the U.S. year to date.

($1 = 9.5804 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Marie Mannes; Editing by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Tomasz Janowski and Kate Mayberry)