Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the luxury carmaker owned by Tata Motors, is preparing to roll out a voluntary redundancy scheme that could eliminate around 4,000 jobs over the next two years. The company could make a formal announcement of the plan as early as Monday.
A £1.7 billion savings target over two years
JLR says it needs to save roughly £1.7 billion over the next two years to adapt to shifting global market conditions. In a statement, the company said that over the past three years it has worked to strengthen its brand and has already made the necessary changes to its product portfolio for the next generation of vehicles. The company frames this as the next stage of a turnaround it began three years ago, when it first set out to reposition itself firmly in the premium segment. Hitting that savings target is now central to its priorities amid a tougher and more unpredictable global trading environment.
A 300,000-vehicle sales target, and an exit option for staff
According to JLR, the next phase of its strategy involves adapting to changing global market conditions while also aiming to sell around 300,000 vehicles. As part of the same plan, the company intends to save the £1.7 billion mentioned above. That sales target shows how much emphasis the company is placing on higher-volume, higher-margin sales even as it trims its workforce. JLR said it has already briefed employee and trade union representatives about the voluntary redundancy programme. Under the scheme, salaried staff and members of the management team will be given the option of leaving the company, meaning the cuts will not be limited to factory-floor workers but will also extend to office-based staff.
Britain's biggest carmaker, hit by a sharp drop in earnings
Jaguar Land Rover is regarded as Britain's largest car manufacturing company, but its earnings have fallen sharply in recent times. The main reasons cited for the slump are lower sales, a cyberattack on the company, and Donald Trump's tariffs. These three factors, weaker demand, the cyberattack and the tariff burden, have together squeezed the company's finances at a time when it is also trying to invest in its next generation of vehicles, adding urgency to the cost-cutting plan.
Union says workers cannot keep paying the price
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, said there had been intensive talks with the government over the weekend on measures to soften the impact of the job cuts at JLR, and that the union would do everything it could to help the affected workers. "It is not acceptable that once again employees have to pay the price," she said. Her use of the phrase "once again" points to a recurring worry within the union that workers keep bearing the brunt whenever the company restructures its operations.
