New Delhi, July 10 -- WOLFSBURG - Volkswagen's supervisory board convened on Thursday to vote on a restructuring plan that would eliminate 100,000 jobs, approximately 16 percent of the company's global workforce of 630,000, and shutter four German manufacturing plants in what would mark the largest single industrial contraction in postwar German history.

The proposed closures target Volkswagen's Hanover and Emden assembly plants, the Zwickau electric vehicle factory, and Audi's facility in Neckarsulm. Together they employ tens of thousands of workers who spent years retooling for electric vehicle production lines now running well below capacity for markets that have, in significant measure, closed behind US tariff barriers.

Chief Execut...