The Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has to cut 500 management jobs, as the car manufacturer faces pressure on sales and profits from the American business tariff.
JLR stated that it would launch a voluntary excessive plan, and that the cut was not expected to exceed its British workforce. The firm described the move as a “general business practice”.
Last week, the car manufacturer revealed the fall in sales in June in three months, as it partially prevents exports to the US due to tariff and also due to the planned wind-down of the old Jaguar model.
The company warned last month that US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 10% tariff on British cars exported to the US would affect its profits.
JLR stated that it “regularly provides voluntary excess to eligible employees” and that the current program was based on “current and future needs of business”.
It states that UK-US trading deal on car imports It gives “the confidence of investing £ 3.5bn per year”.
Birmingham Business School car industry expert Professor David Bailey said that tariffs “play a big role” in job cuts.
“It was not long ago that JLR was reporting bumper profits – £ 2.5BN benefits for the year ending March – which was the best result in a decade,” he explained the BBC’s Wake Up to Money Program.
He said that the firm is also taking workers in the preparation for the production of more electric cars, so the tariff “has definitely had an impact”, he said.
As part of a wave of tariff announcements made by Trump earlier this year, UK exports of UK cars and automotive parts faced an additional 25% tax on top of the current 2.5% levy. Due to this, JLR stopped the shipment of its vehicles in the US.
However, the UK-US deal saw the tariff cut for a maximum of 100,000 UK cars up to 10%, which matches the number of these vehicles exported by the UK last year.
Despite this, Prof. Belly said that the new rate is still “a major growth” from the previous tariff of 2.5%, saying that one of its best selling cars, defenders, is built in Slovakia and it still faces 27.5% tariffs.
Downing Street dismissed any suggestion “absolutely” that JLR’s job cut was a personal embarrassment for Sir Kir Stmper, who visited the company in May and announced that he intended to protect British jobs in the car industry.
A PM spokesperson said the UK-US trade deal “was saved, did not have a job”, saying that JLR was responding to “challenging global conditions” in cutting.
The JLR UK Automotive sector has a large employer with over 30,000 workers.
It has sites in Solihul, Volwarhampton and Helwood on Mercesis, and make Range Rover SUV models in the UK.
Speaking before JLR, he announced his job cuts, Labor MP Preet Kaur Gill for Edgbaston in Birmingham said that the recent UK business deal with the US helped preserve jobs in the company.
“In my territory, the Jaguar Land Rover is actually an important employer. The fact that we have managed to save 12,000 jobs, bring the tariff down … it’s an ongoing relationship and our commitment is to ensure that we continue it,” he said.
