STORY
Jaguar Land Rover has announced plans to remove approximately 4,000 jobs from its global workforce during the next two years. The company employs around 43,000 people worldwide, including approximately 34,000 in Britain, meaning the proposed reductions represent almost one in ten of its existing roles.
The reductions will principally affect salaried and management employees rather than manufacturing workers, with Jaguar Land Rover saying that it intends to achieve as many of the departures as possible through voluntary redundancy. The company has not published a geographical breakdown, so the number of British posts affected remains uncertain. The programme forms part of plans to save £1.7 billion and reduce the number of vehicles the company must sell annually to break even to approximately 300,000.
Jaguar Land Rover said it was responding to technological change, international competition and geopolitical uncertainty, having also faced disruption from a major cyberattack and higher tariffs in the United States. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is expected to meet chief executive PB Balaji to discuss the proposals, while the Government and trade unions will examine opportunities for retraining and redeployment. The company says it remains committed to investing between £15 billion and £18 billion in electrification, digital technology, manufacturing and new vehicles over five years