300 jobs axed at Jaguar Halewood
JAGUAR has announced that it is to axe 300 jobs at its Halewood plant, and cease production of its X-Type car in December.
The company, which said that the redundancies would be voluntary, blamed the ongoing weakness of the market for the decision and did not rule out further action.
It added that it expects to shutdown the plant for at least a further three weeks, before the end of the year, starting in September.
David Smith, chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, said: “Our industry has been especially badly hit by the recession and the premium sector more than others.
“Jaguar Land Rover’s retail sales fell by 28% in the past 10 months. We have taken unprecedented actions to cut costs, including reduced production volumes, significant cuts to investment plans and some 2,200 job losses.
“Ceasing production of the X-TYPE early, with further redundancies and temporary shutdowns at Halewood, is necessary to protect our other investment plans.”
Mr Smith added that further action could be taken but that this will be determined by the state of the market and the speed with which the already-approved €340m European Investment Bank loan can be drawn.
