'It's really sad news,' Birmingham MP Liam Byrne says of Jaguar Land Rover's plans to axe 500 jobs

It was announced on Thursday that the luxury car maker is axing up to 500 management jobs in the UK amid a slump in sales and trade tariff woes.

JLR said around 1.5 per cent of its UK workforce of more than 33,000 would be affected by the job cuts, which are going as part of a voluntary redundancy programme for managers in the UK.

Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, who is chairman of the Business and Trade Committee, met with business bosses from across the region on Friday in Birmingham and speaking exclusively to the Express & Star, told of his disappointment about the situation.

He said: “It was really sad news from JLR but I think it’s kind of a recalibration of the work force.

“If we hadn’t got the America deal signed off that would have been thousands of jobs lost at JLR - no question, and we think the key thing is that JLR survives and thrives into the long term.”

JLR said it was “grateful to the Government for delivering at speed the new UK-US trade deal” which has given the company the confidence to invest £3.5 billion per year to realise its strategy and Mr Byrne welcomed this as “good news”.

He added: “JLR has succeeded over the last 10 years by investing in new products, new engines and new technology - and they make what, in my humble opinion, is the best car in the world. I’m a Land Rover nut and the next generation of Jaguars looks extraordinary. They’re making the best cars in the world and they’re making them in the West Midlands.

“I spent most of my time before politics in business so I know sometimes you’ve got to trim the sales to get to the destination you’re going to. I think that’s what JLR were doing this week.” 

JLR has not said which sites would be affected by any job losses but said the role reductions would be spread across the firm’s management team and a spokesperson said: “Through this limited UK voluntary redundancy programme for managers, JLR is aligning its leadership workforce for the business’s current and future needs.”

The company has sites in locations including Wolverhampton and Solihull in the West Midlands, Halewood in Merseyside, Gaydon in Warwickshire and Whitley in Coventry.

News of the voluntary redundancy scheme comes after JLR revealed last week that retail sales plunged 15.1 per cent in the three months to June after a temporary pause in exports to the US and the planned wind-down of older Jaguar models, while wholesale sales dropped by 10.7 per cent.

The company said the drop in sales was partly caused by the pause in shipments to the US in April after US President Donald Trump’s administration introduced new tariff plans.

The US government had initially said in April that it would impose an additional 25 per cent tariff on car imports into the US but the recently signed US-UK trade deal means a lower 10 per cent tariff will be applied to the first 100,000 UK-manufactured cars imported into the US each year. Any car shipments over the threshold face a 27.5 per cent tariff.