Jaguar Land Rover slashing another 1,100 jobs

Jaguar Land Rover is slashing another 1,100 jobs after the coronavirus crisis caused it to burn through an estimated £2billion. 

The British car maker said it would cut the agency worker jobs ‘in the coming months’ as part of plans to save £5billion. 

Its finances have been squeezed after the pandemic forced its plants and showrooms to close, hitting sales. Overall it said net cash outflows across April and May ballooned to £1.5billion because of global lockdown measures, with the bill in June expected to add another £500m to the total. The latest job cuts are in addition to 5,000 roles that Jaguar already said it would cut last year. 

Its bleak announcement came as figures showed the company had sunk deeper into the red during the year to March 31. Jaguar’s revenues shrunk from £24.2billion to £23billion after the coronavirus crisis hammered fourth quarter sales, including in key Asian markets such as China. 

It meant that in the final three months of its financial year, the number of cars sold fell 31 per cent to 109,869. As a result, annual car sales were down 12.1 per cent to 508,659 and the company’s annual losses widened from £358m to £422m. That included a £500m loss in the final quarter. 

Jaguar said it ended the year with £5.6billion available in cash. In response to the virus crisis, it said it had temporarily shut down car plants, reined in non-essential spending and furloughed 19,000 staff. 

About 13,000 of the company’s employees are still on furlough. 

The firm warned that although a ‘gradual recovery’ of sales is expected, the future ‘remains uncertain’. 

Ralf Speth, Jaguar’s chief executive, said the car maker’s ‘operational fitness gives me confidence that we can weather this storm’. 

He added: ‘In China, we are beginning to see recovery in vehicle sales and customers are returning to our showrooms.’