Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is set to reduce its UK management workforce by up to 500 positions, as the automotive manufacturer grapples with sales pressures and diminished profits attributed, in part, to US trade tariffs.
JLR has announced the implementation of a voluntary redundancy program, projecting that the cuts will not exceed 1.5% of its British workforce. The company has characterized this action as “normal business practice.”
Earlier this week, the automaker disclosed a sales decline for the three-month period ending in June, citing a temporary suspension of exports to the US due to tariffs and the planned phasing out of older Jaguar models as contributing factors.
Last month, the company issued a warning that US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 10% tariff on British car exports to the US would negatively impact its profitability.
JLR has stated that it “regularly offers eligible employees voluntary redundancy” and affirmed that the current program is aligned with “the business’s current and future needs.”
The company added that the UK-US trade deal on car imports provides it with “confidence to invest £3.5bn” annually.
Professor David Bailey, an automotive industry expert at the Birmingham Business School, suggests that tariffs “play a significant role” in the job reductions.
“It wasn’t long ago that JLR was reporting substantial profits – £2.5bn for the year ending in March – its best results in a decade,” he stated on the BBC’s Wake Up to Money program.
He also noted that the company has been hiring in anticipation of increased electric car production, indicating that tariffs “have definitely had an impact.”
As part of a series of tariff announcements made by Trump earlier this year, UK exports of cars and automotive parts faced an additional 25% tax, supplementing an existing 2.5% levy. This prompted JLR to temporarily halt vehicle shipments to the US.
However, the UK-US agreement reduced the tariff to 10% for a maximum of 100,000 UK cars, matching the number of vehicles the UK exported last year.
Despite this, Professor Bailey maintains that the new rate remains “a significant increase” from the previous 2.5% tariff. He also pointed out that the Defender, one of its best-selling models, is manufactured in Slovakia and continues to face a 27.5% tariff.
Downing Street has firmly refuted any suggestion that JLR’s job cuts are a personal embarrassment for Sir Keir Starmer, who visited the company in May and pledged to protect British jobs in the automotive industry.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister stated that the UK-US trade deal represented “jobs saved, not job done,” adding that JLR was “responding to challenging global conditions” in implementing the cuts.
JLR is a major employer within the UK automotive sector, employing over 30,000 workers.
The company operates facilities in Solihull, Wolverhampton, and Halewood on Merseyside, and manufactures Range Rover SUV models in the UK.
Prior to JLR’s announcement regarding job cuts, Preet Kaur Gill, Labour MP for Edgbaston in Birmingham, commented that the UK’s recent trade agreement with the US had helped preserve jobs at the company.
“In my region, Jaguar Land Rover is a really important employer. The fact that we’ve managed to save 12,000 jobs, bring tariffs down… this is an ongoing relationship and our commitment is to make sure we continue that,” she said.
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