Jaguar Land Rover to pause production due to Brexit uncertainty
Jaguar Land Rover is to halt work at its Wolverhampton engine plant for a week in the wake of Brexit, the car giant has announced.
Britain’s biggest car maker said it will pause production at its I54 factory between April 8 and 12, blaming “potential Brexit disruption”.
Car production plants at Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Halewood will also pause manufacturing over the same period.
The shutdown will come 10 days after the UK is due to leave the EU on March 29.
JLR said in a statement: "Today we have confirmed this year's holiday dates to employees across all sites.
"As part of this, we have also confirmed that there will be an additional week of production stand-down April 8 to 12 due to potential Brexit disruption."
Carmakers' Brexit fears
JLR is not the first car manufacturer to warn of its fears over the impact of a no-deal Brexit in particular.
Earlier this month Honda also said it will pause production at its factory in Swindon in April in anticipation of border disruption when Britain leaves the European Union, and BMW will shut its Mini plant in Oxford for a month.
The failure of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan to get through Parliament last week has left some businesses worrying that the country could now be set for a no-deal Brexit, potentially making the import and export of parts more complicated.
JLR announced the latest plans on the same day Airbus warned it could leave the UK in the event of a no-deal departure from the EU.
Labour MP Emma Reynolds, whose Wolverhampton North East constituency borders the i54 site, said: “The additional pause in production in Wolverhampton announced by Jaguar Land Rover is very worrying.
“After failing to come up with a plan B the Government is now running down the clock. This is irresponsible and could have been avoided if the vote on Theresa May’s deal had not been delayed in December.
“I am calling on the Government to urgently rule out no-deal and to let Parliament take back control of the process and find a solution across party lines."
Job cuts
The news of JLR's five-day halt in production came after it was announced earlier this month that JLR plans to cut 4,500 jobs as part of £2.5 billion cost savings.
This is on top of 1,500 workers who left the company last year.
JLR, which is part of the Indian Tata group, employs 44,000 workers in the UK - including around 1,800 people in Wolverhampton, 10,000 in Solihull and 3,200 in Castle Bromwich.
Management, marketing and administrative roles are expected to be hardest hit in the new wave of job losses.
Jaguar Land Rover, which is facing challenging times with sales in China slowing down, launched a voluntary redundancy programme following its job cuts announcement.
Investment in electric
Despite the cuts it is still going to invest in manufacturing new electric drive units.
The units will be produced at the £1 billion engine manufacturing centre in Wolverhampton, while a new battery assembly centre is to be established at Hams Hall in North Warwickshire.
From 2020 all new JLR cars will be electrified.
In 2017-2018 JLR sold 614,309 vehicles in 129 countries, with more than 80 per cent of its vehicles being sold abroad.
It made a £90 million pre-tax loss in the three months to September 30, which compared with a £385 million profit in the same period in 2017. Continuing uncertainty related to Brexit was blamed.
It sales have also been hit by the introduction of European emissions standards known as WLTP, which resulted in a fall in demand for diesel cars.
