CAR INDUSTRY CRASH CRISIS

6,000 job losses & more to come

BRITAIN’S car industry is in crisis with almost 6,000 jobs lost since 2016.

That number is expected to rise as car makers face a “cocktail” of problems.

Sales of diesel cars have crashed after the Volkswagen emissions scandal and economic uncertainty has also hit production.

Jaguar Land Rover – the UK’s biggest car maker, which manufactures almost 500,000 vehicles a year in its British factories – has been one of the worst affected. Most of its cars have diesel engines.

After being encouraged to invest in diesel cars, drivers are furious that fuel for the cars is more expensive and that the vehicles are not as economic or environmentally friendly as they were led to believe.

In April 2018, it announced it was reducing its UK workforce by 1,000 and moving 350 permanent staff from Castle Bromwich to its Solihull factory.

Trends

It is also thought the firm will shed 5,000 more jobs over the next three years as it spends £2.5billion on a turnaround plan.

Drivers are at the moment wary of buying expensive items because of the state of the economy.

Before splashing out they are looking to see how international trends develop.

The sales figures for 2018 will be out soon and industry experts are expecting a large drop on 2017 during which 2.5million cars were sold.

The last figures – released in November – show that sales were already down 6.9%.

It is believed December figures will show no respite as people were spending money on Christmas and the bad weather kept potential customers from car showrooms.

It is thought most other

WARNING: Steve Turner carmakers are also set to be hit.

Vauxhall announced last year it was cutting the number of its dealerships and 250 jobs were being shed at its Ellesmere Port factory, plus another 400 redundancies across its workforce.

The Merseyside plant makes the Astra, which has fallen from favour as drivers prefer bigger cars.

Steve Turner, of Unite the Union, said: “Unless the Government gets a grip by acting and actively intervening in support of UK manufacturing, then we fear more bad news will follow.”