JLR to cut back production and jobs
Luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover is set to announce a cut in production and a reduction in temporary workers jobs.
The throttling back is in response to Brexit and falling demand for diesel models.
Around 1,000 agency roles are thought to be facing the axe at the Solihull and Castle Bromwich plants as the company will not be renewing contracts.
Jaguar Land Rover, which has its £1 billion engine manufacturing centre at the i54 to the north of Wolverhampton, will be announcing the step when it unveils its production plans for the 2018-2019 financial year on Monday.
Earlier this week March sales figures were released showing sliding demand for Jaguars and Land Rovers across the UK and Europe.
Although JLR saw record car sales in the 12 months to the end of March of 616,309 vehicles worldwide, sales were down 7.8 per cent in March.
JLR public relations manager Kim Palmer said: "As is standard business practice, Jaguar Land Rover regularly reviews its production schedules to ensure market demand is balanced globally.
"On Monday we will be cascading our 18/19 production plans for the next fiscal year to our workforce.
"In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some adjustments to our production schedules and the level of agency staff. We are however continuing to recruit large numbers of highly skilled engineers, graduates and apprentices as we are over-proportionally invest in new products and technologies. We also remain committed to our UK plants in which we have invested more than £4bn since 2010 to future proof manufacturing technologies to deliver new models."
In January, the firm said it would temporarily reduce production at its northern English car plant in Halewood later this year in response to weakening demand due to Brexit and tax hikes on diesel cars.
The UK's biggest car maker, owned by India's Tata Motors,employs 40,000 people in the UK, including 10,000 at Solihull.
More than 90 per cent of its UK sales are diesels.
Diesel registrations overall in the UK industry have fallen a third this year when compared with January to March 2017.
Alex Flynn, automotive spokesman for the union Unite, said it would not be commenting until after the announcement on Monday, but would be having discussions with the company.
