AvtoVAZ follows its familiar pattern, making things worse with impressive commitment
AvtoVAZ is trimming its ambitions again. From 2026 the company will run a single shift, a logical move for a factory churning out cars that few buyers actually want. Sales are falling fast, workers are leaving and the management team, true to form, prefers to stare out of the window in dignified silence while insisting everything is perfectly under control and always was.
The single shift regime will last until at least the middle of 2026. It may continue well beyond that unless demand for Lada rises from the dead with biblical enthusiasm. If no such miracle occurs, this will be the new normal.
Production will be cut by at least half and wages will fall with it. At the moment employees can stretch their monthly income to around 70,000 roubles, roughly 770 euros, only by taking on extra work. Even that option disappears in December. In January the average salary may sink to 40,000 roubles, around 440 euros.
Workers say openly that management has no intention of raising pay or compensating losses in any form. The exodus will continue because hope is not a personnel strategy, not even in Togliatti. The company has also made leaving as awkward as possible. Resignation letters are accepted on one day each week and everyone who tries to quit must first sit through an interview with a special committee.
Alongside the single shift comes a four day working week. AvtoVAZ offered a brief explanation. According to the official line this arrangement applies only until December. What the company failed to clarify is which December it had in mind. The current one, a future one or a parallel universe version where the Lada Niva Sport, presently built at a rate of fifty units a month, is the world’s favourite car.
A familiar story then. Fewer cars, fewer workers, thinner pay packets and a management team confident that reality will eventually fall in line with its narrative.
