Jobs under threat at Nissan
Almost 160 jobs are under threat at Sunderland’s Nissan plant.
The firm has confirmed it is starting redundancy talks with staff.
About 160 office posts are affected but the firm says the consultation does not affect production workers
A spokesman said: “We continually adapt our business to maximise efficiency in line with market conditions and we are in consultation with some of our office-based staff.”
Theannouncementcomes just days after the firm committed itself to Sunderland post-Brexit.
Global chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta pledged the firm would “take this opportunity to redefine the auto industry in the United Kingdom”.
The company has repeatedly warned that crashing out of the EU without a deal would render its European business plan unviable.
But Mr Gupta said he believed the last-minute deal would “redefine” the UK’s auto industry.
“Brexit, for Nissan is positive,”
he said in a video call with journalists.
Unite regional officer Nick Halton said he was waiting to learn full details of the redundancy proposals: “I have been invited into a briefing on Thursday,” he said. "They have spent this morning speaking to the employees first, which is only right.”
The HR1 form the firm had to complete gave some additional details of which jobs were facing the axe: “The number of jobs affected is 157 and that is made up of 145 professional and 12 managerial positions,” he said.
"There are no manual roles – it seems these are back-office jobs.”
North East England Chamber
of Commerce chief executive James Ramsbotham said everyone was finding things difficult in the present climate: “All successful businesses constantly assess their productivity and cost-effectiveness to ensure they are the best they can be,” he said.
"Nissan is no different and in the current challenging times, it is more important than ever that they ensure they operate at the right level of expenditure.
"This strategy means they sometimes have to make tough decisions with regard to their workforce and while we understand this we also recognise any redundancy announcements are hard for the individuals concerned.”