Despite strong sales growth reported in North America, the UK’s largest automotive manufacturer, the Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it will be cutting around an 8th of its UK workforce.
In addition to the 1,000 jobs already cut In Solihull last year, a further 4,500 jobs will be axed in an attempt to improve profits as part of their £2.5bn restructuring plan brought in after reporting losses of £90m in quarter 2 of the 2018/2019 financial year; a 13.2% loss compared to profits during the same period the previous year.
The move follows a sharp decline of over 50% in overall sales of vehicles in China mainly due to import duty changes and strained trade relations over the past year, and a 6% drop in the sale of Jaguar Land Rover vehicles in the region which sees their first fall in 2 decades. China is the worlds biggest automotive market and JLR’s largest export market.
Jaguar Land Rover has also seen fluctuating demand within the European market down to fears over Brexit, and recent European wide governmental changes to pollution regulations which has caused a 30% slump in the overall sale of diesel vehicles last year. This has hit the manufacturer hard with over 80% of their vehicles sold in Europe, and around 90% of their product offering being diesel.
The company has been previously criticised by industry experts on being too slow on the uptake of hybrid and all-electric vehicle technology, but have committed to electrifying every new model they introduce to their line-up from 2020 onwards.
