Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has confirmed that is is launching a voluntary redundancy programme in a bid to save £1.7bn over the next two years after reports of thousands of possible job losses at the struggling automaker began circulating over the weekend.
On Saturday, the Times reported that up to 4,000 jobs could be cut at the car manufacturer due to the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign vehicles and falling sales, as well as a crippling cyber attack late last year which is estimated to have cost the wider UK economy close to £2bn. JLR itself was estimated to be losing around £50m a week at the height of the crisis, which forced the firm to suspend production for several weeks, including at its Halewood plant on Merseyside.
The Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) described the attack at the time as “potentially the most costly cyber-attack in British history.”
The company has now confirmed that “salaried and management team members” will be offered “the opportunity to leave the business” without confirming specific numbers.
It said in a statement: “As we deliver the next phase of our strategy we need to adapt to evolving global market conditions while targeting approximately £1.7bn of savings over the next two years and reduce break-evens to 300,000 vehicles.
“To achieve this, we must further simplify our organisation, improve efficiency, and build greater resilience.”
Last month, JLR revealed it had suffered a slump in sales after a fire at a supplier’s factory, along with disruption linked to the US-Iran war.
It said revenues had fallen by 9.6% year-on-year to £6bn for the three months up until 30 June.
JLR was forced into a second temporary pause in production of its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models at its Solihull plant in March after a fire at a component manufacturer factory in Norway.
It also halted the production of numerous diesel and petrol-run models, including the F-Pace.
It employs around 40,000 people worldwide, with the vast majority, approximately 33,000 of them, based in the UK.
