Peugeot Citroen likely to cut 5,000 posts in Europe

According to Xinhua, an 800-million-euro (1.115 billion U.S. dollars) cost-cutting plan for 2012 was announced by the biggest French auto brand in market share at a morning press conference.

The plan is quite likely to have "impacts on staff", the company's Chief Financial Officer Frederic Saint-Geours warned.

PSA's chief executive Philippe Varin confirmed later that 10 percent of the workforce might be affected, local TV channel TFI reported on its website.

The 10 percent could come from the 50,000 people not involved in vehicle production the company employs in Europe.

Till the end of June, the PSA had a workforce of over 205,000 people all over the world, including 100,000 in France.

The company saw its sales of its automotive division, the pillar sector, fall 1.6 percent to 9.3 billion euros (12.9 billion dollars) in September due to price competition and loss in production volume. However, its total revenue for the third quarter rose 3.5 percent to 13.45 billion euros (18.73 billion dollars).

Early this year, the auto giant expected in its near-term outlook a stabilization of the European car market, a 7 percent growth in the Chinese market, some 6 percent and 30 percent growth for Latin American and Russian markets respectively.

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