According to reports, Brilliant BMW launched layoffs on November 2, involving about 1,800 people, roughly 10% of the company's total workforce. The employee compensation plan is uniformly N+5. N is calculated based on pre-tax monthly salary, while 5 is calculated based on basic salary and excludes the performance portion. Employees who are laid off can legally receive unemployment benefits for up to two years before finding new jobs.
It is understood that news of the layoffs had already circulated internally a week earlier. Employees were told that starting November 2, they should wait for a phone call. If they received a call, they would process their departure; if not, they would continue working. Some employees were called away while working on the production line and never returned; others were told while resting at home that they did not need to change into work uniforms the next day and should go directly to the human resources department.
According to reports, Brilliant BMW is headquartered in Shenyang. Union lists show that the company has about 19,000 employees in total, with positions divided into P positions (production sequence) and G positions (management sequence). This round of layoffs covers almost all job types, but the vast majority of those laid off are front-line production P positions. In terms of seniority, those affected include newcomers who joined three to five years ago as well as veteran employees who have worked for more than ten years and reached the level of section chief. Even a 57-year-old G-position employee who is only three years from retirement was on the list.
It is worth noting that this layoff had early signs. For nearly three years, Brilliant BMW had almost stopped external recruitment, and many employees were not renewed after their labor contracts expired. A G-position employee said that since this year, all colleagues in the department whose contracts were about to expire had been notified in advance that they would not be renewed, and a P-position department began implementing the same non-renewal strategy last year. Outsourced personnel were also affected. Some employees reported that chemical delivery truck drivers who previously made deliveries every day have now been reduced to one day per week.
Other media reports show that layoffs at the BMW Group level are even larger. On July 29 this year, BMW announced that it had reached an agreement with employee representatives to cut about 8,000 positions by the end of 2027 through voluntary departures, more than half of them in Germany and mainly in administrative, research and development, and planning non-production roles, with production line workers not included. It is understood that the voluntary departure compensation plan can reach up to 650,000 euros (about 4.87 million yuan), higher than the previous caps for similar programs at Volkswagen (about 405,000 euros) and Mercedes-Benz (about 500,000 euros), setting a new high for voluntary departure compensation among German automakers. Compensation can be paid as a lump sum, in installments, or transferred into a pension account. Early departure can also qualify for an additional "turbo bonus," and employees aged 55 or older can still enjoy car-purchase-related discounts after leaving. The plan unexpectedly became highly popular after it was announced. After the compensation inquiry channel opened on October 8, about 40,000 eligible employees logged into the system in large numbers to calculate amounts, and the surge in traffic directly paralyzed the system. Because demand far exceeded expectations, BMW subsequently suspended acceptance of new applications and prioritized processing submitted intentions.
BMW said this high expenditure is a one-time cost. After the position optimization is completed, it can save about 1 billion euros in labor costs each year starting from 2028. Data shows that in 2025 BMW delivered about 625,500 vehicles in China, down 12.5% year on year, marking two consecutive years of decline exceeding 10%, with sales falling back to 2017 to 2018 levels. Official data from BMW Group shows that in the first half of 2026, BMW delivered 261,800 vehicles in China, down 20.4% year on year, with the second-quarter decline widening to 30.2%. China lost its position as BMW's largest single market globally for the first time since 2013. According to earlier reports, BMW's third-quarter sales in China fell by nearly 25% year on year, and growth in European and U.S. markets failed to offset the decline in the Chinese market.
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