REUTERS
LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) British luxury car maker Jaguar
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Land Rover announced 450 job losses on Wednesday because of a
”severe” fall in demand and renewed demands for government help
to weather the economic downturn.
The company, part of India’s Tata Motors, said it planned to
shed about 15 percent of its managers — some 300 posts – and a
further 150 salaried agency staff from its global workforce of
about 15,000 people.
Managers at the group will not receive bonuses in 2009 and
management pay increases have been deferred to Oct. 1 2009 at
the earliest, the group said.
The cuts are the latest by the group, which reduced
headcount late last year by seeking some 500 voluntary
redundancies and cutting agency support staff by about 850.
Chief Executive David Smith said the cuts were a response to
”the unavoidable impact of the credit crunch and a severe
reduction in demand”.
”We don’t expect sales conditions to return to normal levels
for some time,” he said.
The company wants the government to provide loans or loan
guarantees to help it to secure funding from banks.
”Overall, the global auto market is considerably down,
particularly in markets like the United States and the UK, and
it’s basically because customers cannot raise credit to buy new
cars,” a Jaguar Land Rover spokesman said.
The government said the job cuts were disappointing but
remained silent on the issue of support for the industry.
Tata bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford in June last
year for about $2.3 billion. The company has four sites in the
West Midlands region and one at Halewood on in north west
England.
