Jaguar Land Rover to axe 4,500 jobs, mostly in UK

Brexit-facing Jaguar Land Rover (JLF) will axe around 4,500 mostly UK jobs, the Indianowned carmaker said on Thursday, after a slump in Chinese sales and as buyers dump diesel cars for electric.

“Jaguar Land Rover is expanding a business-wide organisation review aimed at reducing the size of its global workforce by around 4,500 people,” the company said in a statement.

“This is in addition to the 1,500 who left the company during 2018.”

Owned by India’s Tata Motors, JLR employs 44,000 people worldwide, 42,500 of whom are in Britain.

For JLR, its move to shed more than 10% of its UK workforce is aimed at delivering £2.5bn (R44.2bn) of cost cuts over 18 months, as the group looks to move further into the electric car segment amid a massive drop-off in sales of diesel vehicles.

“We are taking decisive action to help deliver long-term growth, in the face of multiple geopolitical and regulatory disruptions as well as technology challenges facing the industry,” JLR CEO Ralf Speth said.

He said “investing in cleaner, smarter, more desirable cars and electrifying . . . facilities to manufacture a future range of British-built electric vehicles will all form part of building a globally competitive and flourishing company”.

JLR suffered a 21% drop in Chinese car sales in 2018. –