FRANKFURT - BMW, the world's biggest premium carmaker, would not need to make more job cuts even if a second wave of the global financial crisis would hit, personnel chief Harald Krueger told Reuters.

We are guiding (employment) via working hours accounts, holidays, natural fluctuations and transfers, he said at the Frankfurt Motor Show, adding the carmaker was also using a limited number of voluntary redundancies.

BMW had already stepped on the cost brakes as part of a strategic revamp in 2007 which led to 10,000 job cuts. It now employs more than 98,000 staff, of which nearly 73,000 work in Germany.

The job cuts will save BMW 500 million euros ($734.2 million) this year.

BMW put 26,000 staff on short working hours early this year amid a sharp downturn on car markets. Around 1,000 remain on short hours at its motorcycle plant in Berlin and a parts plant in Landshut.

Its Dingolfing plant that makes 5-, 6- and 7-Series cars suspended short hours for September and October to make the new 5-Series GT model. Krueger said it was not yet decided whether short hours would resume there in November and December.

(Reporting by Irene Preisinger; Writing by Michael Shields)

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