Workers at Jaguar Land Rover's production facility in Castle Bromwich have been told they will be moving to a three-day working week, according to local media reports.
The West Midlands factory, which produces the Jaguar XE, Jaguar XF and Jaguar XJ saloons alongside the Jaguar F-Type sports car, will reduce output until the Christmas period. The fall in production can be attributed to a decline in sales of Jaguar's four-door models, owing to ongoing Brexit uncertainty and the slump in demand for diesel vehicles.
Moving to a three-day week will reduce the likelihood of further job losses, after it was announced in April that 1000 agency staff would not have their contracts renewed at JLR's Solihull plant. The car maker employs 40,000 people across the UK, with many more jobs linked through suppliers.
Last week, JLR CEO Ralf Speth condemned the lack of certainty in the market, saying that "tens of thousands" of jobs could go at the firm if the right Brexit deal is not secured. Earlier this year, the company announced reduced production at its plant in Halewood, Merseyside, where models such as the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport are built.
A Jaguar spokesperson issued a statement saying that the reviewing of production schedules is "standard business practice" to ensure balanced market demand.
"In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some temporary adjustments to our production schedules at Castle Bromwich," said the spokesperson. "We are, however, continuing to over-proportionally invest in new products and technologies and are committed to our UK plants in which we have invested more than £4 billion since 2010 to future-proof manufacturing technologies to deliver new models.”
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***t stirring Speth
Not the wunder boy everybody thought he was, spectacular misjudgement over "all the eggs in one basket" diesels, then blame something else for poor management.Nice one Ralf.
Note to JLR owners, get rid of the egomaniac Speth and that myopic Callum.
Customer focus
I hope this doesn't go the way of Pichetsreider/Rover 75 but maybe JLR should have more customer clinics and listen more to what their customers actually want rather than just their stylists.
Perhaps Jag should go international Touring Car racing to help get its mojo back and offer interior upgrades/customisation...
I agree, Callum must go
Gman20, you are right, Ian Callum is too conservative. People say Jaguars look good, but I don't get it, I think they could be a lot better. He is too long in the tooth.
I too really want to love Jaguar and Land Rover. Some of their designs have been sensational - Discovery 3, both generations of Range Rover Sport, all except 2nd generation of the Range Rover, Jaguar XJ Series 1 to 3, Defender. You could forgive the unreliability of all of them because they were all just so gorgeous / rugged.
But they have totally screwed up the Discovery. None of the Jaguars look great. I admire the Jaguar F-Pace, it is a good technical achievement, although I would not buy one. They shouldn't have even bothered with the E-Pace - money would have been better spent on testing / reliability of everything else.
The I-Pace could be the saviour, it is a obviously more of a low volume 'proof of concept' than a major series production effort, but it could pave the way for more serious electric attempts.
Whatever they do, they need to bold.