Jaguar Land Rover, recently sold by Ford to India’s Tata Motors, is calling for 198 voluntary redundancies at its three factories in central and north-west England, a company spokesman confirmed on Friday.
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Corporate and governmental affairs director Don Hume said the automaker, which employees 15,000 people here in Britain had offered the “voluntary package” to manufacturing workers in its Halewood (Jaguar X-type and Land Rover Freelander), Solihull (Land and Range Rover vehicles) and Castle Bromwich (Jaguar) plants.
He said the automaker expected a good take-up for the move which was part of an “ongoing drive to improve efficiency” and separate from recent production cutbacks in response to current market conditions. He noted that similar cuts had been made in previous years.
“It’s obviously a pretty low-key programme. It’s something we’ve essentially done in some way over the last several years at this time of year,” Hume said.
“It’s not connected to the economic downturn.”
SMMT data showed UK Land Rover sales in September fell almost 50% (24% year to date) although Jaguar bucked the trend with an increase of 3.56% for the month and over 10% year to date – spurred largely by its new XF sedan line.
Hume added that Jaguar’s global sales were up 12.9% year on year to the end of September.
