Jaguar to shutdown Midlands plant for three weeks

Dec 15 2008 by Jon Griffin, Birmingham Mail

Jaguar spokesman Don Hume said: “The plant at Castle Bromwich will close for two weeks from December 19 and then the week starting January 5 will be a non-production week. Workers will not be off – there is a considerable demand for training of one sort or another and they will be catching up with training programmes.” Mr Hume said management would review the four-day production week for the XJ and XK lines in the New Year. “Everything will be reviewed once we get into the New Year.”

Production of the XJ and XK has been reduced by around 400 cars so far as Jaguar fights to align supply with demand amid the dramatic onsumer spending slowdown which has hit showrooms across the UK automotive sector.

The Christmas and New Year cutbacks at Castle Bromwich are the latest being introduced by Tata at both Jaguar and Land Rover.

Land Rover saw sales plunge by nearly two-thirds in November, while Jaguar sales, buoyed by the success of the XF model, fell marginally year on year.

Around 600 voluntary job losses are being sought by JLR across two separate redundancy programmes, 850 agency staff are being shed in the run-up to Christmas, night shifts have been cut at Lode Lane and 300 workers are taking sabbaticals of up to three months in exchange for temporary 20 per cent pay cuts.