Jaguar Land Rover To Cut 4,500 Jobs Worldwide

(RTTNews) - The British company Jaguar Land Rover, which is owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, said it plans to reduce global workforce by around 4,500 people. This is in addition to the 1,500 who left the company during 2018. The next phase of this transformation programme will begin with a voluntary redundancy programme in the UK.

Jaguar Land Rover outlined the next phase of 'Charge and Accelerate', the company's ongoing transformation programme to deliver 2.5 billion pounds in cost reductions and cashflow improvements over 18 months as well as long-term strategic operating efficiencies.

The company said, "So far, the 'Charge and Accelerate' programme has identified over £1bn of improvements, with more than £500mn already realised in 2018."

Separately, Jaguar Land Rover retail sales in 2018 totalled 592,708 vehicles, down 4.6% compared to 2017's record year. The introduction of the Jaguar E-PACE and I-PACE led to Jaguar's best ever annual sales results in 2018 up 1.2% to 180,833.

However, this was more than offset by market weakness in China impacting on sales of established models. The lower sales in China (-21.6%) were partially offset by stronger sales in North America 7.2% and Overseas (7.3%). Weaker market conditions primarily relating to diesel and Brexit also weighed on sales in the UK (-1.5%) and Europe (-7.8%). The all new Range Rover Evoque has now been announced and will be going on sale later this year.