Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed around 1,000 agency staff will be cut at its Lode Lane plant in Solihull.
It also validated claims 350 permanent workers will be transferred from its Castle Bromwich facility to Lode Lane.
The luxury car manufacturer will not be renewing the contracts of a thousand temporary agency staff due to the fall in demand for diesel models and the increasing pressures of Brexit.
The Lode Lane plant employs over 10,000 workers while Castle Bromwich has over 3,000.
A meeting took place yesterday in which agency staff were informed many of them would be surplus to requirements once a final decision had been made.
In January, the company cut back production at its Castle Bromwich plant because of ‘challenges facing the car industry’.
And there have been a series of planned shut downs since then.
The latest news is evidence the company is continuing with plans to further cut back on production.
A JLR spokesperson confirmed yesterday: “In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some adjustments to our production schedules and the level of agency staff.
“We are however continuing to recruit large numbers of highly skilled engineers, graduates and apprentices as we over-proportionally invest in new products and technologies, including the latest plug-in hybrid options for the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport that are now being delivered to customers from Solihull.
“We also remain committed to our UK plants in which we have invested more than £4billion since 2010 to future proof manufacturing technologies to deliver new models.”
Unite, a major trade union, last night said it will be negotiating to retain jobs and support Jaguar Land Rover workers facing unemployment.
Unite said the heavy cut-backs should have ‘alarm bells ringing’ in government about the UK’s faltering automotive sector.
Describing the news as a blow to the West Midlands economy, Unite warned ministers decreasing consumer confidence, and the government’s ‘aggressive approach to diesel’ were harming Britain’s car industry.
JLR’s union representatives say figures for March, a traditionally strong month, were down 26 per cent for the UK.
Meanwhile, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders showed that new car registrations across the UK industry fell in March by 15 per cent compared with the same month last year with diesel registrations down by nearly two fifths.
On Friday, Julian Knight MP for Solihull said: “The news that has come to us today, from Jaguar Land Rover is disturbing, and I am in regular contact with JLR on this issue.
“More generally, I think it is a mistake for the green lobby to propose measures against diesel vehicles which are often less polluting than other vehicles, and where there are relatively easy fixes in place in order to reduce emissions.
“The demonisation of diesel is now having very real consequences for the UK car industry, which is key to Britain’s growth.”
