Jaguar Land Rover Axes Nearly 200 Jobs
October 17, 2008
By Benson Kong
Photography by the Manufacturer
Jaguar Land Rover has cut 198 jobs from its U.K. workforce as it attempts to increase efficiency in the tough automotive industry. The announcement was made on Friday, October 17. Jaguar Land Rover is primarily looking for voluntary layoffs of production workers at its plants in Merseyside in Northern England and in Birmingham and Solihull in Central England.
Done Hume, director of corporate affairs at Jaguar Land Rover, assured the press the job cuts were not related to the declining world economy: "It is aimed at achieving greater efficiencies in the business. It is not a reaction to the economic slowdown or falling sales." Hume states that global Jaguar sales were up 12.9% for the first nine months of 2008, and Land Rover sales were down 9.6%. He expects sales for 2008 to be the second most successful year in land Rover's history, with a total sales figure of around 200,000 units.
Hume expects the job cuts to be completed by the end of November and has announced that no further job cuts are planned. Acquired by India's Tata Motors in June of this year, the combined Jaguar Land Rover sales in Europe are reportedly down 17.2% to 89,285 units according to European manufacturers Association ACEA.
Source: Automotive News (subscription required)