Land Rover jobs over-subscribed 35 times
DEMAND for new jobs to work on Range Rover’s best-selling Evoque model have been so high they were over-subscribed 35 times, Land Rover has said.
More than 35,000 candidates applied for the 1,000 new positions at the firm’s plant in Halewood, on Merseyside.
The new jobs are on top of the 1,000 already created at Solihull’s Lode Lane plant, where there was a similar high response last November when JLR announced the recruitment drive.
More than 6,000 applications were received within 24 hours of the new jobs being announced by JLR in March and after just one week that figure increased to 20,000 online registrations. The company said the application process for the new jobs had now closed.
The new positions, which will help clear the backlog of orders for the new model and its stablemate, the Freelander 2, will take the workforce at Halewood to almost 4,500 – trebling the number employed there compared to three years ago. The plant is also set to move to three shifts and 24-hour production.
Des Thurlby, JLR HR Director, said: “JLR has a clear ambition for continued growth and we are delighted that so many people want to join us on that journey.
“We are very pleased with the quality of candidates applying for these new roles and more than 100 applicants have already started with us. The scale of the response to our recruitment campaign reflects JLR’s growing reputation as an employer of choice in the North West.”
The new jobs at Halewood include production operators, supervisors and engineers. Reinforcing JLR’s commitment to expanding its skills base, all new employees joining the production line will receive training towards an Intermediate (Level 2) Apprenticeship.
During the previous, large scale recruitment campaign at Halewood in December 2010, more than 14,000 applications were received for 1,500 new jobs, as the factory ramped-up its operations for the launch of the new Evoque, which began production in July last year.
