Jaguar Land Rover job cuts of 4,000 draw no-bailout pledge from Business Secretary
Jaguar Land Rover job cuts of up to 4,000 are expected to be formally confirmed on Monday, with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds making clear the government will not provide a financial bailout to prevent the redundancies. The losses, spread across salaried and management roles, will be delivered through a voluntary redundancy programme over the next two years.
JLR confirmed it has opened that voluntary programme, giving eligible team members the opportunity to leave the business. The company employs about 30,000 people across the UK and makes most of its vehicles at factories in Solihull, West Midlands, and Halewood, Merseyside.
What Reynolds said about Jaguar Land Rover job cuts
Reynolds told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme that direct headcount at a business of JLR’s scale naturally moves through business cycles. ‘A company the size of JLR, which is a huge British success story, at various times in its business cycle, the number of, directly, people it employs will change,’ he said. ‘If this is about making sure over time that the workforce is right to make the business as competitive as possible, that’s the conversation we need to have.’
Asked whether financial support might be on the table to protect jobs, Reynolds drew a clear line. ‘Not if it’s to bail people out,’ he said. ‘If it’s about long-term investment in the future, we do invest alongside industry on that.’ He confirmed he had spoken to JLR chief executive PB Balaji and would meet the firm’s leadership team early next week.
A government spokesperson acknowledged the human cost of the situation. ‘We understand that this will be an uncertain and concerning time for affected workers, their families and wider communities,’ the spokesperson said. The government pointed to existing automotive support measures, including £4 billion of capital and research and development funding to manufacture zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) and a £2 billion electric car grant to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles (EVs).
Union pressure and the financial backdrop
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham issued a stark assessment. ‘Death by a thousand cuts has been going on under the nose of successive governments,’ she said. ‘Years of under-investment, unsustainable ZEV mandates and high industrial energy costs are crippling the industry. There must be further action.’ Graham said she and Reynolds would both meet the JLR chief executive next week, and she credited Unite with having secured a £1.5 billion government facility for JLR following the cyberattack. ‘Once again, we will leave no stone unturned to support these workers,’ she added.
The financial pressure driving the redundancy programme has been building for several quarters. JLR revealed that revenues fell by 9.6% year-on-year to £6 billion for the three months to 30 June, with car volumes down 9.2%. Pre-tax profit, before exceptional items, came in at £109 million for the quarter, against £351 million in the same period a year earlier. Profit margins were hit by a one-off provision linked to US fuel economy rules, which partially offset reduced US-UK tariffs.
Part of the revenue pressure stems from Jaguar’s decision to stop production of several diesel and petrol models, including the F-Pace, as the brand shifts its focus toward electric vehicles. The broader business is also still recovering from a cyberattack that forced JLR to halt production at its UK factories for five weeks from 1 September last year, which weighed on sales and led to heavy financial losses.
Against that background, JLR has set a target of approximately £1.7 billion in savings over the next two years and aims to reduce its break-even point to 300,000 vehicles. In its own statement, the UK Government noted it had taken action to lower electricity bills for manufacturers as part of its automotive support package. JLR said it would ‘share further information with our colleagues first’ before making further public announcements about the programme.
